“The child is still dimly aware of the intimate connection between touch and the third dimension. He cannot persuade himself of the unreality of Looking-Glass Land until he has touched the back of the mirror.” (Rothko, The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art)

Taking as inspiration Rothko’s meditation on the child’s use of touch to perceive space, Anthony Francis’ solo exhibition, Looking Glass Land, is an enthralling new body of luscious yet architectonic painting. Dynamic compositions and surfaces that rise and fall in tactile, corrugated formations of paint manipulate the viewer’s habitual perception of painterly space.

The artist works through two distinct methods; in one, paint is jig-sawed together by Francis first applying it onto plastic sheets and then transferring the paint onto canvas. This introduces an implicitly kinetic element to his work, the artist often shifting these pieces of collage after they have first been laid. In the other, he mixes an alchemy of oil paint and silicone to produce a composite medium, which he then knits into cascading, vines of paint. When this is the case, the medium appears to elegantly crumple under its own weight or bubble like hot oil.

These methods, which are often present within the same painting, create an intensification of space, the paint seemingly bursting beyond the parameters of the canvas. Francis is interested in the spatial idea of pockets; in his work there is often an assumed space within the canvas, created through the absence of paint. This absence is walled in like an air bubble, surrounded as it is by thick and mighty architectures of silicone and oil. Yet these spaces are not redundant, rather ‘the paintings through their relief cast shadows and echo the forms of the paint as a vessel and pocket.’ (Francis).

In the work Deep Field (illustrated above) Francis uses plastic sheets to collage paint onto the canvas. By doing so, he has created what appears as two flat folds, which run at an angle through the canvas and split the painting into three distinct yet fluid areas. Here, the artist surprises us by creating an enveloping composition, reminiscent of a triptych, within a single piece. Furthermore, the surface is deconstructed through areas of collage that have been left to hang loosely on the canvas, revealing blank, un-worked spaces behind them. Piquantly coloured areas further variegate the painting as well as contrasting arrangements of medium such as spray paint, broad brush marks and oil squeezed in tactile, gelatinous lines.

Since graduating from the Royal Academy Schools in 2007, Francis has obtained international recognition with shows in Germany, Beijing Biennial 2008, London and Poland and has also been exhibited internationally by Sarah Myerscough Fine Art in Toronto and New York. He is included in public and private collections in Japan, London, Germany, USA and Russia. He has gained a number of painting prizes and fellowships, including Norman Moores Painting Fellowship, first prize in ‘Swiss Life Insurance Purchase Prize’ and first prize in ‘Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award.’