Spirits of Salt
25 February 2009 - 28 March 2009
35 Heddon Street, London W1
For his fifth show at Sadie Coles HQ, Simon Periton expands on his continuing series of paintings on glass. In recent years, Periton has moved away from the intricate paper cut-outs with which he made his name, to a more visually complex and ambiguous practice. There is a process of blurring and coalescence at work which marks a departure from the formal directness of the paper pieces.
While each work in the show has its own internal logic (formal symmetries, colour, composition), each is made quite intuitively. Periton likens the development of his pieces to the growth of cultures in petri dishes. Frequently dark, they fluctuate between the gothic and the psychedelic, evoking various modes of spiritualism as well as betraying an aestheticist relish for senseless acts of beauty. Eyes and holes abound in the new work, adding to its sense of occultism. The frames assume more of a role this time in a variety of shapes including rounds and diamonds, the glass in one concave, in another convex.