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Magnum Photos

Where Ideas are Born
2 June 2022 – 16 October 2022

David Batchelor: Colour Is ran from 25 June 2022 – 2 October 2022.

The first large-scale survey exhibition of work by Scottish artist and writer David Batchelor (b.1955). For three decades, Batchelor has been concerned, above all, with colour. His work reflects both a delight in the brilliant hues of the urban environment, and an inquiry into how we respond to this rapidly changing technological environment.

A room installation with a large sculptural structure made of computer monitors, cables, and electronic components, emitting colourful lights and creating an immersive glowing ambiance. A person stands observing the artwork.
Installation View, Colour Is, David Batchelor © Compton Verney, Photo by Jamie Woodley

About the
exhibition

Including work in a wide range of media, from sculpture, installation and drawing, to painting, photography and animation, Colour Is took visitors on a journey through Batchelor’s career, starting with his pre-colour works from the 1980s. These give way to his earliest experiments with colour and found objects in the ‘90s, and vivid multimedia installations during the 2000s. The exhibition culminates with recent work, including a glowing animation, in which sentences beginning with the words ‘Colour is …’ are projected in a continuously changing colour-saturated space.

A number of the works displayed came directly from the artist’s treasure-trove studio and had not been displayed in public before. Additional material from Batchelor’s archive, including numerous preparatory sketches and notebooks, were displayed throughout the exhibition, shedding light on his working methods and sources of inspiration.