City Box 1987

Ivan Eyre made this large-scale painting, City Box, with oil on canvas. It’s all about process, like a stage set being built and deconstructed at the same time. The dominant blues and whites remind me of a delftware plate, but look closer: Eyre’s handling of the paint is anything but traditional. See how the cloudscape is rendered with thin washes, almost like watercolor, yet the figures have a sculptural quality, built up with layers of opaque paint. There’s a tension between representation and abstraction. The figures and urban landscape are recognizable, yet the strange juxtaposition of elements pushes us into a dreamlike space. Notice the jagged, linear quality of the drawing, particularly in the foreground figure. This emphasis on line is echoed in the architectural details, and it’s like he is building up a world from discrete elements. I think of artists like de Chirico, who used unsettling combinations of objects and space to create a feeling of unease, or maybe Philip Guston, with his interest in the construction of pictures from what seem like arbitrary elements. Eyre's painting reminds us that art is an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time.