Jennider Durrant RA & Kevin Laycock - Chromatic Intuition

An exhibition bringing together the paintings of Jennifer Durrant and Kevin Laycock. Abstraction, chromatic brilliance and music infuse the works, in which themes and variations, irregularities and intuitions combine to heighten our awareness of pictorial space and form - the tensions, energies and pleasures.

Born in Brighton in 1942, Jennifer Durrant was educated at Brighton College of Art (1959-63) and the Slade School of Fine Art (1963-66). In 1994 she was elected Royal Academician. She moved to Umbria, Italy in 2000, where she now lives and works.

Durrant has extensively exhibited her large scale canvases in the UK and the US throughout her career, since appearing as a prizewinner in the Young Contemporaries in 1966. Works are held in the permanent collection at Tate and at other major UK public institutions as well as many in the corporate field. Since re-locating to Umbria, Durrant has produced a major body of acrylic and canvas pieces which respond to new lyrical influences and continue the exacting process of colour/form juxtaposition which has consistently governed the work. The series Last Conversations and Uccelli continue from the most recent large format works. Intimate in scale, they retain the rigour of Durrant's focused compositions and present as joyful colour essays, partly triggered by music and a continuous flow of ideas.

Kevin Layock was born in Leeds 1962, originally trained as a scientist, then trained in Fine Art 1989 – 96 at Leeds Metropolitan University (BA) and the Royal College of Art, London (MA). He has taught at Loughborough University, Chelsea School of Art & Design and Glasgow School of Art. He currently lives and makes work in Leeds and lectures in the Design Department at the University of Leeds.

As a semi-professional musician, he has always been concerned with the inter-relationship between the two art forms and public exhibitions have frequently incorporated live performances by professional musicians. This has now culminated in the new collaboration with composer, Michael Berkeley, COLLISION, which commenced at Gallery Oldham and the Leeds Fuse Festival.