Richard Wright
Until June 13; Dundee Contemporary Arts

Sometimes art just feels right, and you don’t want to analyse why. Richard Wright’s wall paintings have that effect on me, and if it wasn’t my job to do otherwise, I would happily live with the memory of his work without ever trying to pin it down. The artist would surely approve, because he demands that his works – painted directly on gallery walls – are obliterated at the end of their exhibition lives.

Wright makes posters, prints and paintings on paper, but his wall paintings remain by far the most hypnotising. For this, his largest UK show so far, Wright spent four weeks at DCA, absorbing and adorning the gallery space. His patience must be immense, considering the meticulous lines and grids which he has painted over large tracts of wall.

Wright is a sign-writer run amok. The intense accuracy of his fine gouache lines is partnered with a totally intuitive approach. This unique marriage of control and freedom allows Wright to improvise irregular shapes within a tightly structured framework. It’s no surprise that he sees it as a kind of visual jazz.

In the performance of a live musician, there is no going back once the note is sounded. Likewise, once Wright has committed paint to the wall, there is no visible evidence that he ever changes his mind and paints over what he’s done.

It is often said that Wright’s works echo the surrounding architecture, but in fact it’s more a question of balance. The shapes are not exact reflections of the roof, or of the window, or even of the ancillary bits and pieces which protrude here and there for reasons of their own. Instead Wright’s shapes are an intuitive reaction to the space, finding their own balance in an environment which is rarely as simple as we first apprehend.

No curator would ever hang a picture so that its left edge butts onto a division in the wall, or overlaps a locked door. This is exactly what Wright does in two of his wall-paintings, assimilating the space instead of being contained within it. Depending on where you stand, you will experience the work differently – if you’re close enough to appreciate the fine detail, you won’t see the overall picture.

Wright obviously likes to control the way we see his works. Usually there are two ways into DCA exhibitions, but the artist has closed one of them off. He wants us to navigate his show in a particular order, playing hide and seek with the paintings. Some are immediately visible, others take longer to reveal themselves.

Although he exercises control over the way we see his work, Wright is not fully in control of the work itself. The paint escapes from the rigid grids which he has predetermined, and it takes flight across the wall before he can stop it. And that is probably why, at the end of the day, it just feels right.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 09.05.04