“Curves, explosions, colours, wild space, timelessness, this time, the first times, the unknown catastrophic times, the storms — all the knifed paint there’s ever been, all the scrawled paint, the liquified paint and the thick and thin paint — all the materials and mediums — the scribbles and arcs and slashing marks and sweeping marks — the lightly done marks — the heavy bangs and the subtle touches. All the swirling energies. The simple facts of a surface, and the associations and comparisons and streams of ideas. We’re in our own moment, no moment and all the moments there’s ever been.” Matthew Collings September 2023
Vigo is proud to announce our first show with Xavier Baxter in the Quadriga Galleries at Wellington Arch from 22nd September to 12th November 2023.
Xavier Baxter aka Bob Baxter was born into a multigenerational family of artists, with his maternal grandparents and parents marking their time on earth in that way. It was no surprise then that as he took his tentative steps towards his own solo career that he opted for a little anonymity rechristening himself Bob Baxter, using instagram to provide a soft wall between him and his audience. It quickly became apparent that people liked and wanted to engage with his paintings. Baxter was what his parents called him when he was a small boy so it felt comfortable as an alter ego.
It is hard to convey in words Xavier’s passion for the materiality of paint. He is constantly striving to invent new ways to explore the vagaries of the medium, determined each painting will be better or at least different to the last. Buzzing with the anticipation of discovery, his process starts with the figure or figures squeezed into the rectangular space of the canvas. presented as non gender specific bodies interacting with each other. These figures quickly become the conduits for a near maniacal exploration of expressive paint marks so much so that the original figures are worked and reworked, until they exist as gesture, and up close disappear as one is subsumed into the unapologetic colours. Many people marvel at them as purely abstract paintings but look for long enough and from these wild and luscious gestures a relationship between the human markers and the material settles and both become apparent.
Every day is a quest to find out how can he expand his understanding of the properties of the different paint brands, grounds and mediums, spray paints, pigment sticks and chalks. He constantly risks the paintings, creating and destroying with abandon, treating the studio like a punk laboratory. These materials and his subject matter have of course been used before a zillion times but each artist applies their DNA within their own contemporary context which is why the equation always changes and painting will never die. Xaviers DNA is of the fast forward kind.
Artists who have invented their own unique surfaces and styles are a major influence on his work. Heroes such as Auerbach with his use of thick impasto, Kiefer pouring molten metal, Bram Bogart mixing marble dust into the paint, Dubuffet using bizarre mud mixtures and Jenny Saville’s sumptuous application of paint inspire him to get into the studio to replicate and expand on the feelings he experiences with the work.
“Every mark I put on the painting I have to think of as if it was the first. It has to be done with freedom and energy and with no doubts. Using scrapers, pallet knives, various sized brushes, along with hand smeared marks, I create actions and movements within the painting that surprise me and to which I then have to respond to, offering up problems to solve and allowing each painting to have its own identity and personality. I like to harness those feelings with a huge out-poring of power, putting all of my strength into each painting. When I’m Painting I listen to loud music; rock, rap, grime ..and immerse myself into a whirlwind of paint, noise mess and madness. For me it’s important for the work to show my soul and emotion, to exude vitality. I want my paintings to hit you hard from a distance… to bring you in and the closer you get the better the paint gets and the more you lose the figures and get lost in gesture and paint. I want to create ebbs and flows in the painting allowing the eyes to wander through different areas yet retaining a connectivity, allowing the viewer to keep finding new elements, marks and colour combinations every time they look and look again’ Xavier Baxter September 2023.
Compositional consideration is fuelled by studying both the old and the new. Many of the figurative poses are inspired by the old masters -Delacroix, Rubens, Titian. He enjoys zooming in on historical paintings, seeing how the protagonists interact in particular paying attention to their expressive postures but also mining ideas from the least significant background characters. The figures always dominate the canvas- there is cumulative depth yet no foreground or background. Usually they are larger than life size, to give the characters power and presence, dominating the space, yet the figures are universal and we don’t feel put upon just engaged. We are taken along for the ride by the sheer beauty of the paint. They are in the here and now and their genesis is themselves in the past, present and future. We the viewers make our own stories and get lost in the sheer decadence of the material. The self imposed challenge is for the figures to fill the space they inhabit with the joy of paint.
Toby Clarke 23rd September 2023
For details of available works please contact info@vigogallery.com.
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Vigo and Wellington Arch
This exhibition is the latest in a five year programme curated by Vigo in partnership with English Heritage that has seen exhibitions by Jordy Kerwick, Ibrahim El Salahi, Henrik Godsk, Erin Lawlor, Matthew Collings, Daniel Crews-Chubb, and Matthew Burrows in this exceptional London landmark. Forthcoming shows include Samuel Bassett and James Drinkwater.