David Batchelor

Dundee, Scotland, 1955.
Lives and works in London, England.

David Batchelor is an artist and writer based in London. He studied Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham (1975-78), and Cultural Theory at Birmingham University (1978-80). For thirty years Batchelor has been concerned, above all, with all things colour. His work explores the experience of colour within a modern urban environment, and its historical conceptions within Western culture. Transiting between sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, photography and animation, Batchelor has exhibited widely in the UK, continental Europe, the Americas and, more recently, the Middle East and Asia. He is also a renowned writer, having written a number of books and essays on colour theory, including Concretos (2022), The Luminous and the Grey (2014), Found Monochromes (2010), Colour (2008), and Chromophobia (2000).

Dundee, Scotland, 1955.
Lives and works in London, England

EDUCATION

1978-80

MA Cultural Studies Centre of Contemporary Cultural Studies University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England

1975-78

BA (Hons) Fine Art Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham, England

1973-75

Foundation Course Watford College of Art, Hertfordshire, England

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024

Woven Things, Cecilia Brunson Projects, London, England

Transparent Things, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil

2023

I-Cons and Ex-Cons, Kestle Barton, England

2022

Colour is, Compton Verney, England

David Batchelor | Alfredo Volpi, Cecilia Brunson Projects, England

Disco Mecanique, Salisbury Cathedral, England

2020

New Work, Waddington Custot, Londond, England

2019

My Own Private Bauhaus, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland

2018

Psychogeometry 2 (curated by David Thomas), Site Eight Gallery, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

2017

Psychogeometry, Matt’s Gallery, London, England

Chromatology, Ab-Anbar Gallery, Tehran, Iran

2016

Reef, Handel Street Projects, London, England

Glowsticks, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil

2015

Monochrome Archive 1997-2015, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England

Flatlands Remix,Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, Doha, Qatar

2014

Chromolocomotion, Terrace Wires Commission, St Pancras Station, London, England

David Batchelor:Concretos, New Art Centre, Wiltshire; Salisbury, England

2013

Wall to Wall (curated by João Bandeira), Centro Universitário Maria Antonia, São Paulo, Brazil

Flatlands, Fruitmarket Gallery, Endiburgh, Scotland; Spike Island, Bristol, England

2012

Magic Hour, GEM, Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, The Netherlands

Brighton-Palermo ReMix, Brighton Festival, Brighton, England

Slugfest, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

Magic Pavement , Pavement Gallery, Manchester, England

2011

2D3D, Karsten Schubert, London, England

2010

Chromophilia, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2008

The Backlights, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil

2007

Unplugged, Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Unplugged (Remix) Wilkinson Gallery, London, England

David Batchelor & Nikolai Suetin, Ingleby Gallery,Edinburgh, Scotland

2006

Festival Remix (Christmas Lights Commission), South Bank Centre, London, England

Candela V & VI, Ingleby Gallery (off-site) Old Royal High School, Edinburgh, Scotland

Candela 7/450 (For the Death Star), Victorian Palmhouse, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, Scotland

Wilkinson Gallery, London, England

2005

Ten Silhouettes, Gloucester Road Undergound Station, London, England

2004

Shiny Dirty, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England

2003

Spectrum of Hackney Road, Wilkinson Gallery, London, England

2002

Barrier, 38 Langham Street, London, England

2001

Shiny Dirty, Habitat, London, England

2000

Electric Colour Tower, Sadlers Wells Theatre, London, England

Apocalypstick, Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London, England

1998

Monochromobiles, The Economist Plaza, London, England

1997

Shelf-Like, Frame-Like, Note-Like, Byam Shaw School of Art, London, England

Polymonochromes, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, England

1996

Polymonochrome Drawings, Soho House, London, England

1995

Serial Color, Curtain Road Arts, London, England

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025

Lo tienes que ver — La autonomía del color en el arte abstracto, Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain

2024

Positions, part three (Curated by John Slyce), Alma Pearl, London, UK

Summer Exhibition (Curated by Cornelia Parker), Royal Academy, London, UK

2023

Light: Works from the Tate Collection, The National Art Centre, Japan

Colours in the Air (with Richard Deacon), Handel Street Projects, England

Modern and Contemporary, Waddington Custot, England

2022

Hello MONO-HA!, White Conduit Projects, Inglaterra

Chromophilia (curated by Tanya Barson), Hauser and Wirth, Switzerland

Art is the Antidote, Museum Voorlinden, Netherlands

2021

Colour Space, Galleria Mucciaccia, Rome, Italy.

House Share, Firstsite, Colchester, England.

2018

PRISM (curated by Chris Clarke and Fiona Kearney), Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland

The Everyday and the Extraordinary, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK

The Monochrome: New Beginnings, JPNF Museum, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Criminal Ornamentation (curated by Yinka Shonibare), Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester, UK

Great Artists | Great Teachers, The Levinsky Gallery, Plymouth, UK

Una Cierta Oscuridad (curated by Alexandra Laudo), CaixaForum Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

The Everyday and Extraordinary, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, England

Sette Opere per la Misericordia (curated by Mario Codognato), Capella del Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples, Italy

Monochrome: Empty & Full (curated by David Sequeira), Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

2017

Ingleby Gallery Presents, Fitzrovia Chapel, London,England

Totem: Spirit Beings & Sacred Objects, Saatchi Gallery, London, England

Art of the Postcard, Handel Street Projects, London, England

Roesler Hotel: Purity is a Myth, (curated by Michael Asbury), Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil

Between Poles and Tides, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland

Seven Works for Mercy, Italian Cultural Institute, London, England

colour is, Waddington Custot, London, England

A Certain Kind of Light, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, England

2016

5 Years at Heddon Street, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, Londres, Inglaterra

Three Triptychs (curated by Mario Codognato), Galleria d’arte contemporanea a Napoli, Naples, Italy

Night in the Museum, The Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England

NEON: The Charged Line, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, England

Seeing Round Corners, Turner Contemporary, Margate, England

Light Show, CorpArtes, Santiago, Chile

FOUND, The Foundling Museum, London, England

2015

Drawing Biennial 2015, Drawing Room, London, England

In Light of the Monochrome, Dye House Gallery, Bradford, England

Trial/Error/Art, The Holden Gallery, University of Manchester, Manchester, England

Sprayed, Gagosian Gallery, London, England

Light Show International Tour, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE; Benaki Museum’s, Pireos St Annexe, Athens, Greece

Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915-2015, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England

2014

Colour on Paper, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil

50 Years On: The Centre of Contemporary Cultural Studies, MAC Birmingham, England

Black and White (curated by Cornelia Parker), Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, England

Somewhat Abstract, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, England

Uniquo, Galeria Carbono, São Paulo, Brazil

Shelf Show, Galerie Tom Christoffersen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract Drawing (curated by Richard Deacon), The Drawing Room, London, England

2013

Why Painting Now?, Vienna, Austria

White, Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Touching Colour, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England

Fragile?, Le Stanze del Vetro, Venice, Italy

Tell me whom you haunt: Marcel Duchamp and the contemporary readymade, London, England

Light Show, Hayward Gallery, London, England

2012

Illuminated – QUAD Gallery, Derby, England

Luz na Cidade, Centro Cultural Justiça Federal, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, England

The Curator’s Egg Altera Pars, Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London, England

Phantom Limb, LiMAC, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Lima, Lima, Peru

2011

Gravity’s Rainbow, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland

Lumiere, various venues, Durham, England

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England

The Shape of Things to Come: New Sculpture Part 1, The Saatchi Gallery, London, England

A Painting Show, Autocentre, Berlin, Germany

2010

Kupferstichkabinett: Between Thought and Action, White Cube, London, England

Fast Forward – Arte Contemporânea Britânica no Brasil, Espaço David Ford, Centro Britânico Brasileiro, São Paulo, Brazil

Biennale für Internationale Lichtkunst, Unna, Germany

FIAT LUX, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Gas Natural de La Coruña, Spain

Open Light in Private Spaces: Biennale fur Internationale Lichtkunst, multiple venues, Unna, Germany

The Gathering, Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, England

Party, New Art Gallery, Walsall, England

2009

Almost Nothing, Laure Genillard Gallery, London, England

Boule to Braid, Lisson Gallery, London, England

Repeat Please, Stedelijk Museum’s, Hertogenbosch, Holland

Presque Rein III, Laure Genillard Gallery, London, England

Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today,Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England

The Sculpture Show, V22, London, England

Kaleidoscopic Revolver, Hanjiyun Contemporary Space, Beijing, China

Better than Grey, Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, London, England

A Twilight Art, Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York, USA

London Calling, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea

2008

Sculpture from the Scrapyard, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, England

Conversations, Kettle’s Yard Museum & Art Gallery, Cambridge, England

The Color Chart, MoMA, New York, USA

1st Folkestone Triennial – Tales of time and space, Folkestone, England

2007

Passion Complex – Selected Works from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan

Art Car Boot Fair 2007, London, England

Front Room / Killing Room, David Risley Gallery, London, England

Rummage: Sculptors’ Drawings, The Winchester Gallery, Winchester, England

Light, Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, England

David Batchelor & Nikolai Suetin, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland

Echo Room, Alcala 31 (organized in collaboration with the British Council), Madrid, Spain

Shifting Ground, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, England

Abstraction: Extracting from the World, Millenium Galleries, Sheffield, England

2006

A noir, E blanc, l rouge, u vert, o bleu – Farben, Kunstmuseum Magdeburg – Germany

off-site projects at the Palm House, Botanic Gardens and Old School, Edinburgh

Thread, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, England

Backdrop, Bloomberg Space, London, England

Multiplication, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Materical World – Sculpture from the Arts Council Collection, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland

2005

Radiance, Off-site projects in the Merchants’ Quarter, Glasgow, Scotland

Double Meaning, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil

Extreme Abstraction, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, USA

Contrabandistas de Imagenes, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile

Untitled, Marc Selwyn Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

David Batchelor e Joao Paulo Feliciano, curadoria de Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil

The Art of White, The Lowry, Salford, England

Tall Stories, MOT, London, England

Colour my World, Riflemaker, London, England

2004

26th Bienal de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Sodium and Asphalt, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico

Chromosexuals, Galleri Bouhlou, Bergen, Norway

Some Versions of Light, The Telephone Repeater Station, Richmond, North Yorkshire, England

One Night Stand, PEARL at El Montan Motor Hotel, México

2003

In Good Form: Recent Sculpture from the Arts Council Collection, Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, England

Embargo, Aubery Square, London, England

Primary Colours, City Gallery, Leicester, England

Days Like These – Tate Triennial of Contemporary British Art, Tate Gallery, London, England

2002

Furori Uso, Ferrotel, Pescara, Italy

Colour Love, Johnson County Community College, Kansas, USA

New Religious Art, Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, England

Henry Peacock Gallery, London, England

2001

Ruby, PEARL, London, England

The Magic Hour: Art and Las Vegas, Neue Galerie, Graz, Austria

Another Britannia, Tecla Sala, Barcelona touring to Foundacion Marcelino Botin, Santander, Spain

Amidst Concrete, Clay and General Decay, Konstfack Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden

2000

Perfidy, Monastere de la Tourette, France and Kettles Yard, Cambridge, England

British Art Show 5, Edinburgh, Southampton, Cardiff and Birmingham, England

Fact and Value, Charlotttenberg Palace, Copenhagen, Denmark

Give and Take, Jerwood Space, London, England

1999

NINENINENINETYNINE, Wilkinson Gallery, London, England

Postmark – An Abstract Effect, Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, USA

Limit Less, curated by Matthew Higgs, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, Austria

East Wing, Courtauld Institute, London, England

1998

Then and Now, Lisson Gallery, London, England

One Wheel on my Monochromobile, Limited Edition for Camden Arts Centre, London, England

1997

East International, The Sainsbury Centre / Norwich School of Art, Norwich, England

1996

Station Transformation, Central Bus Station, Tel Aviv, Israel

Abstractions, Byam Shaw, Concourse Gallery, London, England

1993

Victoria Miro Gallery, London, England

1991

Approaches to Realism, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool; Goldsmiths Gallery, London, England

1990

Rotation, Esther Schipper Gallery, Cologne, Germany

COMMISSIONS

2019

King’s Xmas, Temporary site specific installation, Granary Square, England

2018

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain, Site specific sculpture, Eddington, England

Homage to Doctor Mirabilis, Site specific sculpture, Westgate Centre, England

2017

Sixty Minute Spectrum, Hayward Gallery, London, England

P-A-R-A-D-E, Summer in the Square, John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, Southampton, England

2015

Lyric Hammersmith, London, England

2014

Chromolocomotion, comissioned by Terrace Wires, ST. Pancras International Station, London, England

2010

Spectrum on the Hill, site specific installation, Haman the Hill, Seoul, South Korea

Big Rock Candy Fountain, site specific installation, Archway Tower, London, England

2009

Spectrum of 1st Street, site specific installation, 1011 1st Street, Washington D.C., USA

Walldella, Dundee, site specific installation, McManus Galleries, Dundee, Scotland

2008

Hong Kong Fesdalla, site specific installation, The British Council, Hong Kong, China

2005

Against Nature, site specific installation, University of Warwick, Coventry, England

2004

Treasury Magic Hour, site specific installation, The Treasury, London, England

West Wing Spectrum, site specific installation, St Bart’s Hospital, London, England

2003

Evergreen, site specific outdoor work, More London, Tower Bridge, London, England

2001

Electric Colour Picture, edition of 75 three-dimensional works, The Multiple Store, London, England

1999

Chromodesks, site specific installation, Pier Trust, London, England

Quick Change Room, site specific installation, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London, England

COLLECTIONS

Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland

British Council, England

Government Art Collection, England

Leeds City Art Gallery, England

The Saatchi Gallery, England

TATE, England

Winter Light: David Batchelor, Sixty Minute Spectrum

Southbank Centre

Discover : David Batchelor on the fear of color

Gemeentemuseum Den Haag & GEM: David Batchelor Inspired by Mondriaan

Chromolocomotion

David Batchelor: The Fear of Colour | HENI Talks

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