LATE TURNER: PAINTING SET FREE: TATE LONDON

Eliasson has analysed seven paintings by Turner to create Turner colour experiments, which isolate and record Turner’s use of light and colour. 

Turner colour experiments relate to an ongoing series of Colour experiment paintings which began in 2009 when Eliasson started analysing pigments, paint production and application of colour in order to mix paint in the exact colour for each nanometre of the visible light spectrum.

Turner colour experiments demonstrate Turner’s continued relevance to and fascination for artists today and will coincide with Tate Britain’s major autumn exhibition, The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free.

Olafur Eliasson says:

Turner’s ability to shape and frame light in his paintings has had a significant impact on my work….In the Turner colour experiments, I’ve isolated light and colour in Turner’s works in order to extract his sense of ephemera from the objects of desire that his paintings have become.  The schematic arrays of colours on round canvases generate a feeling of endlessness and allow the viewer to take in the artwork in a decentralised, meandering way.