Be Kind

Jack Trolove paints directly and boldly, slashing layers of thick oil paint onto canvas. His process is tangible and exhilarating to observe for it seems to happen as we watch, especially when viewed close up. Marks of the palette knife are left unrevised, ridges of paint, like miniature mountain ranges, rise across the surface of the canvases. Viewed side on, the paintings are like relief sculptures and have projecting lumps of paint sticking out and casting shadows across the surfaces nearby. The paint is so thick that in the recent show, Tenderise, areas were still moist and malleable and far from dry.

Trolove’s colour is vibrant—no white—and with strong blues, reds and yellows layered on over and under one another or butted together. He paints with all the energy of an abstract expressionist and his colours, forms and tones can seem independent of conventional representation. This is because close up the paintings