A catalogue that stays close to the conditions of painting rather than its mythology. Produced in conjunction with Farthing’s late-1980s exhibitions, the book gathers works that move between image, material and reference, often approaching painting as a site of translation rather than representation.

Farthing’s practice is attentive, almost diagrammatic. Images appear as if tested against their own making, stretched between observation and construction. The publication follows this logic: modest, structured, quietly rigorous. It reads less as a retrospective statement than as a working surface, where painting remains open, provisional, and in dialogue with its own means.

There is a clarity here that does not simplify but holds complexity in suspension. A book that documents, but also continues, the thinking of the work.

Details

1987, Museum of Modern Art Oxford
Edward Totah Gallery London
First edition, 1750 copies
Text: Marco Livingstone, Stephen Farthing
ISBN 0-905536-58-8

See also

At Candida Stevens Gallery.