Ballerina 1996

Ivan Eyre gave us this painting “Ballerina,” dimensions 162 x 137 cm, and it’s like a dreamscape inside a silhouette, or is it the other way around? I imagine Eyre, layering each color so meticulously, building up these two figures, the blue of the lower body dissolving into these gorgeous red and white tones further up. It's an intriguing combination - a landscape nestled within the contours of two seated figures, and I'm captivated by how he marries the interior and exterior worlds. The dancers? figures? Are they resting, dreaming? There is something about the relationship between the forms, the juxtaposition of the dancers and the landscape, and the flatness of the picture plane, that feels both familiar and strange. And how do these flat zones relate to other flat zones? As if these areas can never be in the same world together! It's as if Eyre is in conversation with other artists like Alex Katz or even going back to Matisse, exploring the idea of form and space and colour that is very current in painting today.