Emma Beer’s recent paintings are dark and deliciously heavy, but these qualities are complemented and enriched by sensual subtleties of tone and texture; layering and detail; chaos and order. Through these formal tensions, the viewer can’t help but be drawn into the all-important construction process vital to Beer’s work: a practice that explores all that painting encompasses, paint’s properties as a substance and different ways of mixing and layering paint and colours. Beer’s paintings question the place of abstract painting in contemporary art, and contribute much to this ongoing dialogue.
