Broad Line Etchings
5 works
Ian Davenport Colour Splat Cluster For Sale
Ian Davenport
Colour Splat Cluster, 2018
Screenprint on Velin Arches white 250gsm paper
33 1/2 x 22 1/4 in 85 x 56.5 cm
Edition
Edition of 40
About this work
Ian Davenport is a Turner Prize-nominated British artist whose practice spans painting, installation, and printmaking. Working across scales from intimate works on paper to vast architectural interventions, he has sustained a decades-long investigation into the behaviour of colour and the visual logic of abstraction. His print editions bring the energy and intellectual precision of his studio practice to a wider audience without compromise. Colour Splat Cluster, produced in 2018, is a screenprint on Velin Arches white 250 gsm paper — a French fine art paper prized for its crisp white surface and exceptional receptivity to ink. The work measures 85 × 56.5 cm and is available in a limited edition of 40. Part of the Colour Splat series, the composition presents a tight constellation of radiant circular splats, their forms overlapping and layering to create a cluster of interacting colours and tones. Where other works in the series send splats across the full picture plane, Colour Splat Cluster concentrates this energy into a denser, more intimate grouping. The optical dynamism of the piece — achieved through the precision of the screenprint process and the careful sequencing of colour layers — gives each circular form a sense of tactile weight and depth. Davenport's ability to convert the language of accident and spontaneity into disciplined, reproducible print imagery is central to the appeal of this series. Colour Splat Cluster exemplifies this achievement: an image that reads as joyfully exuberant yet is underpinned by meticulous craft.
Price on Application
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More from this series
More series by Ian Davenport
About the Colour Splat Series
Explore Ian Davenport's acclaimed Colour Splat series, a dynamic collection that showcases the artist's signature approach to abstraction and color interaction. Comprising works such as Colour Splat Cluster, Colour Splat Wallop, Colour Splat Fizz, and Colour Splat Bang, this series demonstrates Davenport's mastery of energetic, gestural composition through innovative paint application techniques.
The Colour Splat works represent a pivotal moment in contemporary abstract art, where controlled chaos and chromatic intensity converge. Each piece in the series invites viewers into a vibrant visual experience, with layered splattering and dripping methods creating depth and movement across the canvas. Davenport's distinctive style has established him as a leading figure in modern abstraction, with significant market recognition among collectors worldwide.
These works are highly sought-after for their visual impact and conceptual sophistication, making them compelling additions to discerning collections. Each piece within the series maintains individual character while contributing to the cohesive exploration of color and form that defines this important body of work.
Enquire for availability and pricing of works from the Colour Splat series.
About Ian Davenport
Ian Davenport (b. 1965, Sidcup, Kent) is one of the most immediately recognisable and formally inventive painters to emerge from the YBA generation, an artist who in the early 1990s committed himself to a systematic investigation of paint, gravity, and the painted surface that has deepened and diversified over three decades without losing its initial radicalism. Davenport studied at Goldsmiths College, graduating in 1988 into the same extraordinary cohort that included Damien Hirst, Michael Landy, Sarah Lucas, and Gary Hume. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1991, one of the earliest nominations in the prize's history to go to a painter working in this rigorously non-representational mode.
Davenport's signature technique involves pouring liquid paint from the top of a canvas or support, allowing gravity to dictate the resulting vertical lines, or controlling poured arcs and horizontal stripes that pool and blend at the base. The process is simultaneously systematic and contingent: Davenport plans his colour sequences and dilutions with great care, but the exact behaviour of the paint as it flows and interacts remains partly outside his control. The results are works of extraordinary chromatic vibrancy and optical complexity — neighbouring colours bleed into one another at the edges, creating secondary hues and atmospheric effects that shift with viewing distance and light conditions. His series include Poured Lines, Colourfall, Puddle Paintings, Circular, and Arc works, each exploring a different configuration of his central method.
Working in industrial household paints — Davenport has long used the durability, pigment density, and workable viscosity of commercial paints rather than artist-grade materials — he produces surfaces that are both physically robust and visually luminous. The work carries its technical intelligence lightly: standing in front of a Colourfall or a major Poured Lines canvas, the formal decisions dissolve into pure perceptual pleasure. At auction, his paintings have achieved significant results: Poured Painting: Green, Magenta, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Red (1999) achieved £100,000 at Phillips London in July 2020, and Poured Lines: Cerise (2007) reached £126,000 at Christie's London in October 2021. His print editions — produced in accessible formats with strong chromatic fidelity to the painted originals — range from thousands to tens of thousands of pounds and represent excellent entry points for collectors new to his work.
Davenport's work is held in permanent collections at Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Sprengel Museum Hanover, Borusan Contemporary Istanbul, the Arts Council Collection, and the National Museum Cardiff, among other institutions.
Guy Hepner brings deep expertise to Ian Davenport's editions and original paintings. Our gallery at 177 Tenth Avenue, New York is well placed to assist collectors in acquiring his work or in selling and valuing existing holdings. We offer free, confidential valuations and access to a global network of collectors engaged with contemporary British painting.