Kidner Rothko to Riley

The curatorial and editorial project for systems, non-objective and reductive artists working in the UK

Michael Kidner | From Rothko to Riley

Flowers, Cork St, London, 30 April - 31 May 2025

A review by Laurence Noga

In this intimate and compelling exhibition Michael Kidner’s transformative approach builds connectivity between Mark Rothko’s softly articulated geometry and the optically complex combinations in Bridget Riley’s hard-edged painting. The curation develops a synchronicity through our experience of colour theory and spatial relationships, astutely exploring colour systems and allowing Kidner’s interpretation of scale (which feels instrumental) to develop a scaffolding between the two artists.

“It is the area between the second and the third dimension which interests me – the order that lies between imagination and reality. Reality involves experience.” Michael Kidner

A parallel notion of enquiry exists in Kidner’s painting. Firstly, through his visceral and psychological understanding of colour, both in the tonal adjustments, and the sense of movement thoughout the gallery. And secondly, by using his research into retinal after-images (when two horizontal bands of colour are bisected by a third) and encompassing his deep interest in maths, science, and chaos theory, unlocking rational, playful, and optical sensations.

Raindrops (1960), Oil on canvas, 97 x 122 cm

After-images fill the space, sometimes for a moment, often for much longer. In Raindrops (1960), tiny turquoise and red rectangles fleetingly catch our eye as they rotate, re-circulating through space. Their relative scale flickers between the softly rendered larger imperfect rectangles and the luminous pink ground. The undulation and the structural components activate the temporal aspects and synthesis of the show.

Homage to Rothko (1956). Oil and gouache on paper, 50.8 x 38.2 cm

An interplay of warm and cool tones in Homage to Rothko builds on that after-image, calling to mind Rothko’s Lilac and Orange over Ivory (1953). Kidner introduces a focus into the disrupted painterly edges. The heady mixture of oil and gouache brings an order, or perhaps discovers an order, as Kidner observes. Maybe Kidner was thinking of Rothko’s preoccupation with surface and inner light; for example, an egg white glaze between layers of pigment or varnish. Kidner focuses our thoughts on flux and impermanence while illuminating both the flatness and the vibration of the transparent forms, not only through spectacular colour choices, but by activating how the layering is transmitted and received.

Untitled (Colour Balance with Red, White and Orange),1957. Oil on canvas, 92 x 61 cm

Playing with scale feels critical for Kidner. It has an impact in all the works, but in his hands we feel he is examining perception and space. He uses the dispersion of colour in that vision, but through a highly contemporary lens. The low light in the space emphasises the emotional resonance that Kidner draws out from the audience. Untitled (Colour Balance with Red, White and Orange) has a calculated chromatic sequence and emits its own kind of energy. Perhaps he is talking about a system of colour which indicates a glimmer of hope concerning atmospheric conditions, the colour transcending our experience. I like the way the registration of red, orange and white has an intensity that brings to mind Rothko’s No 22 (1949) in the way the light pulsates, as if from a screen source.

Right: Untitled (c.1960). Oil on linen 101 x 121.5 cm, Second from right: After Image (c. 1960). Oil on linen, 96.5 x 122 cm

After Image (1960) has an eye-popping composition. Made up of arcs of colour that operate like magnetic structures, the forms almost meet in the centre, yet push away from each other, like split links in a chain. Kidner focuses our thoughts on collisions of time in Rothko’s approach to colour, but cleverly starts shifting his language towards a taut, hard-edged structure, more strongly emphasising the geometric relationships. Kidner concentrates our attention on both foreground and background, developing the variance within neighbouring connected compartments. He allows us to dip in and out of this transformation. The sharp acid pink contrasts with the vermilion arc, bringing an optical flare to the disconnected relationship.

Untitled (1960) is a stunning and original work that allows Kidner to find his own unique twist of colour combinations and colour contrast. He carefully constructs a retinal image that makes us aware of the hidden arc glimpsed beneath the transparent white surface like a geometric apparition. The chromium oxide green ground is bisected by creamy-white angular diagonals. We can’t quite comprehend whether the second broken link floats in front, or drops behind the luminous pink. It’s a clever illusion, but one that seems to be about structural interplay; in the way things fit together through a sculptural approach.

Violet Ochre & Blue Stripes (c.1963), Oil on linen, 126 x 76 cm

In Violet Ochre and Blue Stripes (1963) Kidner sharpens that relationship, perhaps finding inspiration in Riley’s animated visual language of repetition, symmetry, and asymmetry. Kidner’s structural system of displaced parallels is here combined with Rothko’s colour palette. The depth of space is fractured by the angularity of the vertical strips, calling to mind Bridget Riley’s Shift (1963). Kidner makes painterly decisions, while incorporating systems artists. I am immediately intrigued by the way in which he has left the vertical strips with broken edges to increase the fluttering sense of movement, tightening up the composition, moving towards a generative mechanism.

Butterfly Wings (1966), Oil on canvas, 168 x 183 cm

The striking, intricate wave patterns in Butterfly Wings (1966) are structurally difficult to unpack. We start to speculate how the work began. Kidner’s colour distribution operates like pockets of air, perhaps suggesting how butterflies respond to temperature. Like stepping stones, the composition is divided into columns. By the fourth column of grey/turquoise, the saturated colour has altered to a cadmium yellow /turquoise relationship. In contrast, the second column shifts from a pink/yellow to pink-grey and back again. Kidner felt it necessary to present both a three-dimensional and a two-dimensional experience of the columns simultaneously.

It’s possible that Kidner was aiming to elevate our understanding of the natural world by regulating the temperature of his colour choices. It may be that he is indicating the distribution of the colours to emphasise the rapid lifecycle of the butterfly. A butterfly’s four wings are used to impress a mate, and Kidner certainly pulls us in close, constructing a composition through time and memory, in a hierarchy of system and procedure.

Untitled (Orange, Magenta, Brown) (1963). Acrylic on canvas, 220 x 158 cm

Untitled (Orange, Magenta, Brown) (1963) brings together the kind of scale and spatial relationships that we find exhilarating in both Rothko and Riley. Its resonance and luminosity, combined with the optical elements make a fantastic combination. Highlighting a visual sense of compression in the composition, Kidner develops an optical illusion in the stretching of the elongated horizontal bands. But it is the placing of Column II (1970) alongside this painting that makes us aware of Kidner’s logic, or systematic interpretation, of a two-dimensional approach from a three-dimensional source, or vice versa. The small sculpture brings on board Kidner’s understanding of wave patterns and their cyclical nature.

I like the way Kidner uses a recurrent sense of interference, visibly interwoven into the structure of his paintings. His examination of visual disturbances that activate a momentum in the work feels important. But perhaps it is his relationship between two wave surfaces into a relationship with each other that is at the core of his practice. He is articulating strategies within a visual puzzle that the viewer must attempt to disentangle.

All photos courtesy of Install, Michael Kidner: from Rothko to Riley, 2025, Flowers Gallery, © the artist. Photography by Antonio Parente.