OK, so you will have missed the private view. Well so did I, as I’d returned from Spain late that night with a headful of art and writing thereof…..but will be in there very soon. And so should you be dear reader. I’ve always liked Derek Ogbourne’s paintings. There is viscerality to them – the paint itself is the subject matter which is then a portal into all sorts of stuff going on in the imagination. They are also mischievously beautiful. All played out against flat grey, the colour tension is strong and engaging, warm against cool, hot against cold. The images primal, or ‘an assortment of elemental gestures’ as the press release has it. The flatness of the grey ground reveals the plastic – almost sculptural quality of the paint. Ogbourne relishes the stuff – dragging, dolloping and playing with it. But this not arbitrary, infantile marking as they can turn into recognisable organic forms. Check out the show – Willesden is on the Jubilee line and the gallery a tube of paints throw from the – er – tube. Check him out too derekogbourne.net
Jan Woolf
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