David Batchelor can't resist a jolt of colour, or a shade of grey for that matter. His installation Magic Hour, part of Light Show, currently on at the Auckland Art Gallery, plays on these contrasts, exploring "the relationship between colour and darkness".
"Most of my work is very brightly coloured - the colours of the city at night - but there is often also some darkness about it," he tells us from London. "I started using colour in the studio pretty much by accident, in 1992. I'm surprised but generally very happy to find myself still using it and thinking about it every day, over 20 years later."
Batchelor is known for his impressive, brightly lit sculptures, and playful compositions using simple colours and shapes. He has also published several books; his latest, released last year is The Luminous and the Grey. "It is about where and when colour begins and ends, in the city, in time and in our minds."
Batchelor's most recent project, on at London's Whitechapel Gallery, is called Monochrome Archive - 500 photographs of white rectangular panels that he has found in random spots around London and other cities over the past 17 years. "At the centre of each image is a white void that looks rather out of place in our image-saturated environment," he explains.
