At 92, British artist Frank Bowling is still trying to make the best painting ever
In his nineties, Frank Bowling defies age with his vibrant abstract art, as seen in his new Hong Kong exhibition, his first solo show in East Asia
Every day, the British artist Frank Bowling goes to his London studio and tries to create the best painting the world has ever seen. He is 92 and has not lost hope. Along the way, there has been brutality, fear, poverty, disappointment, sorrow and, for many years, invisibility.
Recognition has arrived late. In 2005, he became the first black artist elected to London’s Royal Academy of Arts. In 2019, when Tate Britain held a retrospective of his 60-year career, the headline of The Guardian’s five-star review was: “Apocalyptic visions from a shunned giant of British art”. He was 86 when he was knighted.
Now Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong is holding his first solo exhibition in East Asia. The title, “Frank Bowling. Like Water”, is a reference to what are known as his Poured Paintings, a series he began in the 1970s when he constructed a tilting platform and drenched his canvases with paint from above, layer after layer, to create a torrent of pure colour. His love of the world’s fluid beauty has been lifelong and, like water, he too has persisted against apparently immovable obstacles.
On a recent morning, he is, of course, at work. His 19th century studio, rented for many years from the local council, is in the aptly named Peacock Yard: you step out of a London-grey street and into a world so vibrant with colourful display that it takes your breath away.
These days, he directs the pouring process from a wheelchair. Several helpers, including his former personal trainer who was persuaded to exchange the gym for artistic workouts, are monitoring streams of paint down the room’s massive vertical canvases.
