LONDON.- The 2011 contemporary programme at Agnew’s takes a turn towards illusory abstraction in June with an exhibition of previously unseen works by painter Matthew Radford. The exhibition is on view from June 8th through June 29th, 2011. This remarkable body of work develops Radford’s signature themes of people, crowds and the spectator.

To live in a metropolis is to move among the crowds - walking side by side countless unfamiliar faces or travelling on an underground teeming with strangers - rarely does anyone stop to acknowledge and understand the quality of a contemporary city experience. These works by Matthew Radford explore, in an introspective way, the experience of urban living. The artist opens up a dialogue between the mass of a crowd and the individuality of a single figure by delineating the space around them, thus abstracting the landscape in which they appear.

Peter Ackroyd, the prominent novelist and critic, has said of Radford’s work; “In his paintings Matthew captures the immensity of the city...These are memorable haunting works of urban art, eliciting both the poetry and the pathos of the city.”

In Matthew Radford: New Works, Radford cleverly combines an investigation into the formal aspects of painting, through experimentation with the brush, whilst examining the psychology of interpersonal dynamics within a crowded city.

The exhibition at Agnew’s explores the anonymity and speed in which figures and cars move through the city, a notion which is intensified by the sweeping of paint across the canvas. Radford’s images offer the viewer a moment to reflect upon the movement present in these paintings, and inevitably within their own lives. The artist offers the viewer, a journey; we travel with him through the streets of anonymous faces, delving deeper into the scene as the eye darts across the canvas.

Over his career Radford has developed an extraordinary body of work focusing on the spectator. As the viewer we witness a balance; on the one hand we have the random selection of the scene and on the other his meticulous manipulation of the image.

Matthew Radford was born in London in 1953. Between 1971 to 1974 he attended Camberwell School of Arts and then after his graduation Radford studied painting with Leon Kossoff and Ewan Uglow. He has received a number of important accolades including; Jeffrey Archer Prize for painting in 1981, and an award from the Greater London Council in 1983. Since the start of his career Radford has worked in Rome, Florence, New York and London.