‘Labyrinth’ was first exhibited as a solo exhibition at The Sustainable Studio, Cardiff, Wales in May 2018 | Curated by Lydia Meehan

Exhibition text:

Bringing together, for the first time, a selection of large and small-scale paintings by Aidan Myers, Labyrinth depicts Myers’ nonlinear and intuitive approach to painting, in both physical and theoretical terms. 

Myers’ influences for painting extend from his interests in life drawing and from his understanding of the human anatomical structure. Yet, Myers knowingly and willingly forfeits working around a specific subject in return for gut response to the process of painting; to the deeply rooted, rhythmic energies of himself as a painter. 

Working in isolation in his studio, Myers surrounds himself with a myriad of different sized canvases and studies of the human form. His processes are chaotic, simultaneously spreading paint on up to ten canvases at a time. Pathways from canvas to canvas interchange, cross and blur, as Myers re-works his paintings anywhere from a few days to years at a time. Small works are compositional segments, brutally cut from paintings months previous. A horizon line of a landscape becomes a human form with the simple rotation of the canvas. There is no predetermined endpoint within Myers’ painting process and it is his instinct alone that decides the point of completion.

The results are paintings merely on the cusp of figurative; compositions are energetic with the force in which they have been painted. They are abruptly visceral, material and physical. They are to be confronted; to be felt. Older works feel comparatively controlled to the level of freedom Myers more recently expresses. Fat gestures of thrown paint lay bulbous on the canvas, dense and gritty. Colours blend across the dragged surface, exposing marks that we may never have known existed. Fluid glazes punctuate the rugged terrain.  

There is an undeniable full - frontal immediacy to the paintings. Yet to spend time with their surfaces is to see that they have many contradicting planes and challenge viewer perceptions. A lagoon so deep you can fall into it turns to reflective glass with one blink. A deep purple grape - a wet, pulsating organ - obscures itself beneath its own hazy bloom. A leg lost in a landscape appears taught and muscular, motionless and skeletal. 

Within Labyrinth, Myers aims to create tensions where nothing and everything is revealed at once and over time. Myers encourages the viewers to become aware of their own instinctive nature and unique perceptions to visual imagery within the chaos. 

Lydia Meehan, Curator
May 2018