Gary Wragg
'Partita'

Oil on canvas
208 x 165 cm

Gary Wragg was born in High Wycombe in 1946. He studied at High Wycombe School of Art 1962-66, Camberwell School of Art 1966-69 and the Slade School of Fine Art 1969-71. He showed in 'British Painting 1974' Hayward Gallery London 1974 and 'British Painting 1952-77' Royal Academy London 1977. His first one-person show was at Acme Gallery London 1976. In the 1980s he showed regularly at Nicola Jacobs Gallery London and in the 1990s at Flowers East London, both one-person and in their 'British Abstract Art' and 'Small is Beautiful' series. He was included in 'Art Crazy Nation' Milton Keynes Gallery 2002.

"The basis of this painting was a collage I produced in Toronto in the late 1990s. The simplicity of its two vertical bands of white and lime green, enveloped by an irregular framing edge of grey-black, captured me, though for months afterwards I was unable to do anything with it. Then, during a performance of the Bach Partita in B minor given by my son Ben in the church of St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, I was overwhelmed by a flood of visual sensations.

The colours of the church interior, and of distant red and green scaffolding outside the high window, mingled with other colours conjured up by listening to the music: greys, blacks, tans, beiges, green, red, and a cascade of various tints. This experience prompted a series of attacks on the painting's preliminary foundation. During the subsequent months of completion it was like a magnet to the varying viscosities of paint and movement. The vertical emphasis was paramount at every stage along the way."