This group of works is the most recent in a series of illuminated sculptures begun by Batchelor in 1999. The works, on which Batchelor has been working for the last two years, all appear to face away from the viewer. Placed a few centimetres from the gallery wall, most of these large free-standing structures are made from his characteristic materials of found steel supports, commercial lightboxes, coloured acrylic and quantities of electrical cable. Unlike earlier works, these throw all their light and colour against the wall, while the viewer sees only the backs of the lightboxes and their supporting structure. Thus in each work a dark central shape is surrounded by a glowing halo of coloured light.
These works have their origins in a series of under-lit ‘pimped-up’ dollies, The Spectrum of Hackney Road, first shown at Wilkinson Gallery, London, in 2003, and relate to Ten Silhouettes, a site-specific installation commissioned by Platform for Art, shown at Gloucester Road Underground Station, London, in 2004.
The works represent the culmination of a large body of work relating to Batchelor’s long-term interest in illuminated colour and how it is experienced in the modern city. Three Graces is in some respects the darkest and most contradictory series. Each work is simultaneously dark and light, it both faces the viewer and faces away, as if in shame, like a work of art pretending it doesn’t want to be looked at.
