Sandra Blow 1925-2006
Untitled (Red Abstract), 1967
oil, sand and paper collage on canvas
54 by 48 inches


Provenance
Julian Hartnoll Gallery
Private Collection, Spain

Exhibited
London, Julian Hartnoll Gallery, Sandra Blow and Joe Tilson: Influences from Italy, Eight Works 1956-1967, 4 - 22 March 1997, cat no.8 illus colour



By 1966 Blow had moved away from the heaviness of the matter paintings of the 1950s and developed a lighter approach both to colour and texture in the tea and ash compositions. This work, painted in 1967, marks the introduction of bright colour to the previously delicate and atmospheric space of the 'tea paintings'. This composition represents an expansiveness and simplicity while also achieving a sense of movement and balance.
Space had acquired a new relevence within abstract art during this period and this painting effectively demonstrates Blow's intention to use space in her compositions in order that they should work as 'non-functional architecture'. She acknowledged Piero della Francesca as a source for his use of space and adapted his principles about masterly control of the geometric framework and use of light, scale and pattern. In a much less literal way she placed these concepts withing an abstract context and reinterpreted his synthesis of the natural and the artificial in her own non-figurative terms. Blow hopes that her audience will become involved with these paintings and states:
'They are concerned with space, balance, proportion and volume. What they are not concerned with is function. They are like a Dutch interior, but they do affect your mind and feelings. You are not concerned with having to walk upstairs. You are not confined, as you are in an architectural space, to its function.'