RAG member: John Potter
“My drawings inspire but they do not define or determine anything. As in music they transport us into the ambiguous realm of the indeterminate” Odilon Redon, An Artists Creed, 1898
Instrumental Paintings is a series of small works created spontaneously without the use of preparatory sketches or underdrawings and constructed as purely abstract images without any narrative other than what the colour alone implies. No visual obligation has been placed upon either the artist or the viewer to create a fixed meaning or representation. Insight and interpretation emerge solely from an emotional response to colour, form and the moment.
Also included in the exhibition are a number of paintings from the Modern Nature series, the title of which was inspired by Maggi Hambling’s description of Derek Jarman’s garden in Dungeness – a place which defied traditional notions of planting to cultivate beauty in a harsh and bleak landscape. The artist describes how “nature and the built environment are in a constant flux of rearranging themselves. People place buildings and boundaries upon nature but eventually these will decay or be destroyed. In my paintings, I lay borders through colour and line but then let the paint run free to create its own shapes and forms in the way that nature cannot be controlled and will eventually burst through human structures. You don’t have to go very far to find areas where humans have built something but it has been reclaimed by nature. It’s on almost every corner”. This constant state of mutability ultimately offers a message of regeneration and hope.
The works are part of the exhibition Echoes Through Nature which pairs John’s paintings with ceramics by Imahiko Kawamura.
Image: detail from Untitled, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 57×42 cm
From: 3-11 May 2025
Private View Friday 2 May 6-9pm
The Ice House, Holland Park, London W8 6LU
Monday-Friday 11am-6pm
Saturday and Sunday 10am-6pm
Admission Free
In association with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s Park Services