John Chamberlain

Fifteen works will be exhibited dating from 1988 to 2001, each work made with painted and chromed steel that originates from used car bodies. Chamberlain began this working in this style in the late 1950s. He was influenced in part by the Abstract Expressionists and in a way translated their approach into three-dimensional form. The individual pieces of scrap metal are first re-painted and sprayed, often multi-coloured. The brightly coloured parts are crushed and re-shaped then fitted together and finally welded in place. ‘It’s all in the fit’ Chamberlain explains, ‘I’m a collagist…a collagist fits things together…each part is held together by other parts.’ His abstract assemblages such as apparently offspring, 1992, appear both compressed and expansive as if they are about to transform into some other state. As the sculptor Donald Judd wrote, ‘Chamberlain’s sculpture is simultaneously turbulent, passionate, cool and hard.’