Cascade: A huge rainbow waterfall of dripping paint by British artist Ian Davenport

The British artist has a meticulous painting technique that plays with timing and chance, allowing carefully selected chromatic palettes to flow down to the bottom of a painting. This emphasises the materiality and liquidity of his work.

In two new large-scale works, Mirrored Place (2017) and Cobalt Blue Water (2017)*, Davenport has taken this technique one step further, by co-opting the intricate puddled section at the bottom of the painting, as a sculptural element. This takes its lead from his monumental, fourteen-meter-long painting, Giardini Colourful, as pictured above, at the 57th Venice Biennale, 2017.

Davenport has an intuitive approach to colour, appropriating and borrowing from various sources. For a number of years, he has referenced historical artworks, such as Old Masters paintings, as a way to orchestrate more complex colour fields and sequences. The idea of borrowing and reclaiming is intrinsic to his work and is expanded upon in the accompanying exhibition text, Looking for a Steal.

Since graduating from Goldsmiths’ College of Art in 1988, Davenport has been the subject of numerous exhibitions worldwide, with solo shows at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and Tate Liverpool. Cascade at Custot Gallery in Dubai will launch on 5 November and run until 6 January 2018.

Main image: Ian Davenport's Giardini Colourfall 2017 | Photo credit: Todd White Art Photography. Exhibited: Swatch Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale