LONDON – How you see Idris Khan’s work has a lot to do with where you stand. Like his meticulously layered composite photographic works, this new set of black paintings and drawings shimmer with radial forms from a distance, but up close reveal the painstaking process of layering and detailing that went into their production.
Using tonal variations of black, Khan stamps tiny lines of text in layer upon layer to build up constellations of words into ethereal shapes. In building this form, the layered words of course cancel each other out, and up close it’s hard not to strain to see what each line actually says as they run into each other and become abstract.
Blouin ARTINFO visited Khan at his studio in the lead up to his show and again at Victoria Miro Gallery, where work was underway on a monumental wall drawing made up of thousands of stamps. Khan explained how he made the transition from digital work to painting by hand onto the surface, while retaining his interest in repetition, layering and obfuscation.
"Idris Khan | Beyond the Black" will be at Victoria Miro until November 9.
