Like colourful waterfalls, the streams of colour pour down the walls and swirl around as puddles at the bottom, feeling so fresh that you don’t dare touch them.  We are used to seeing Ian Davenport’s huge paintings exploring vertical streams of colours, for example his 48 metre long mural under the railway bridge in Southwark Street a few minutes’ walk from Tate Modern and at the Venice Biennale last year.  

At Waddington Custot in ’Colourscapes’, he continues this exploration in the exhibition of his latest works.  His ‘Puddle’ paintings have these flowing streams of acrylic paint running down and swirling at the bottom, while he has also developed smaller paintings on paper, more free-flowing and breaking away from vertical lines, and his series ‘Splat’ where paint explodes from the background resembling fireworks, balloons or flowers, depending on how you see them.