Kevin Laycock
Biography

Born in 1962, Kevin Laycock is an abstract artist and amateur classical musician based in Leeds. Since completing his MA at the Royal College of Art, Laycock has exhibited widely throughout the UK. He was a Lecturer in Art and Design History and Practice at the University of Leeds between 2001 - 2024 and prior to this, he taught widely, including the Chelsea School of Art and Design, the Glasgow School of Art and Loughborough University.

Laycock is represented in the UK by Art First, London. Key exhibitions with Art First include Chaos and Roses (2016) and Collision¹ (2009-13), both illustrated on this site and both with published catalogues to accompany them. In Chaos and Roses, Laycock acknowledges a deliberate move away from his earlier, more intuitive and painterly expressionist work, such as Cosmic Trifle.² He cites specific reference points, namely, the work of two seminal, English abstract painters, Jeremy Moon³ and Jennifer Durrant RA, who has also been represented by Art First.⁴

Moon was a leading figure in British art in the 1960s and 1970s. Laycock was attracted to Moon’s system based practice of the early 1970s, the abstract and the geometric, with its inclusion of grid-like forms composed of vertical, horizontal or diagonal lines.

Durrant says of her own work, ‘I do think that a painting may be rather like a mandala, in that its use may be meditative or contemplative’^.6

Chaos and Roses comprises seven works, all square and all oil on wood panel. The use of wood represents something of a departure for Laycock and is a result of his desire to create an extremely hard, clean, paint surface. The hard surface gives Laycock’s colour palette an extra vibrancy with colours that are brighter and more arresting. Again, unusually for Laycock, he made a preparatory sketch for each work on graph paper as a way of plotting with absolute precision the arrangement of the geometric shapes within the confines of the square. Laycock describes the preparatory work for Chaos and Roses as taking longer than the actual act of painting, which he completed with frenetic energy. He sands down the surface after each layer of paint, repeating this process many times.

Collision was a collaboration between Laycock and celebrated English composer Michael Berkeley CBE⁷, and testifies to his concern with the inter-relationship between art and mucic. A digital installation, Collision was the practice element of Laycock’s doctoral research, The translation and interpretation of the structural elements of Michael Berkeley's musical compositions through painting and digital media.⁸ In Collision, the artists have created an illusory environment, which upon entry, is designed to invoke feelings of peace and tranquillity in the viewer. The sequencing of the work is important too, with each of the seven works taking something from the last, building into a single, holistic collection. Collision toured to a number of art and ecclesiastical venues in England and Ireland (2009-13).

In Laycock's 2021 body of work for the Atkinson, Southport Museum and Art Gallery exhibition Quilt/Grid/Pattern he continues his exploration of the work of quilters such as the Gee’s Bend Quilters⁹ - a collective of African-American women based in Alabama, USA. Laycock comments, ‘I find the bold division of picture plane, the stark geometric designs and the vibrant colour palette completely arresting’.¹⁰ He also refers to the textile collections at Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire, UK, their early Victorian patchwork quilts in particular. Textiles have been an element of longstanding interest in Laycock’s practice and the powerful abstractions of the Gee’s Bend quilts have a resonance which has engaged his special attention.

Clare Cooper, and Jane Speller MSc, AMA
Archivist and curator

1. Gallery Oldham in conjunction with the University of Leeds (2010).
2. Cosmic Trifle is in the private collection of Thomas Williams, London.
3. Jeremy Moon (1934-73).
4. Jennifer Durrant (1942-).
5. Jeremy Moon biography, Alan Wheatly Art, www.alanwheatleyart.com
6. Jennifer Durrant exhibition, The Journey: A Search for the Role of Contemporary Art in Religious and Spiritual Life (1990).
7. Michael Berkeley (1948-).
8. University of Leeds, 2012.
9. Gee’s Bend Quilters, established mid-nineteenth century.
10. From an interview with Kevin Laycock, April 2020