Twombly is flawless

Quattro Stagioni is an exhibition exploring Twombly’s relationship with both American abstraction, and European traditions.

The cinematic curation of the room spotlights each painting. Named after the four seasons, they offer a real visual feast. Bursts of colour explode across the large canvases, as though the elements from the seasons - wind and rain - have taken over the gestures of Twombly. Marks squiggled on with pencil and crayon join to make words and sentences written in Italian and English. Although hard to read behind the layers of acrylic and oil, their composition offers another element of aesthetics to Twombly’s interpretations of life and death.

Twombly’s influence from both Europe and America is clear to see: the canvases in scale are similar to Rothko; the gestures used to apply the paint reflect a ‘Pollock-De Kooning’ style, and the incorporation of text is something of a poetic ‘pop’ statement. Twombly seems obsessed with loosening the posture of words, the fluid rolls and curves seen repeated in both earlier and later works: Untitled (1968) and Untitled (2005). Having only died 4 years ago, Twombly is celebrated as one of the greatest modern artists, and with the dead and rebirth of seasons, the exhibition is itself, a celebration of Cy Twombly and his life.

Quattro Stagioni is free and runs until January 10 2016 at the DLWP, Bexhill. With a talk of Cy Twombly by Art Historian Colin Pink taking place 28th November 2015. £7/£5 members & concessions.