Adams Important Irish Art 30th September 2015 : You can Download a PDF Version from the Bottom Menu Down Arrow Icon

Oil on board, 61 x 61cm (24 x 24”)

Signed with monogram;

Signed and inscribed with title verso

Exhibited Colin Middleton exhibition Tom Caldwell Gallery November 1980 Cat. No. 1

Provenance: “Colin Middleton” Studio Sale, Christies, October 1985, Catalogue No. 179.

€10,000 - 15,000

Colin Middleton exhibited twelve paintings from the Wilderness Series in 1980 at the Tom Caldwell Gallery, of which

‘UFOs’ was the first work in the catalogue. It is an unusually sparse painting in a long and often elaborate series that

occupied Middleton for most of the previous decade. The suggestion of landscape is minimal and the rigidity of this

horizontal arrangement enhances the tension and drama between the objects in the sky and the single visible form on

the ground.

The actual forms of these UFOs recall the series of paintings in the 1960s that Middleton based on an anvil-shaped rock

he had found. The forms are both mysterious and purposeful and their apparently hard and defined surface contrasts

with the shifting texture of the paint surface that had engaged Middleton throughout the Wilderness paintings, in

which he breaks down its flatness with a technique that might be distantly related to the decalcomania used by the

Surrealists.

Certainly ‘UFOs’ demonstrates the somewhat ironic humour that is a central aspect of the Wilderness series but it is

also a remarkable work in terms of the compositional tension that Middleton evokes with so few elements. The fore-

ground horizontals draw the eye through to the object on the ground directly below the flying objects, which have cast

an eerie light on to the red-tinged horizon.

The meaning of many works within the Wilderness Series at times appears to be impenetrable, but this mystery does

seem particularly appropriate in the case of the present painting.

Dickon Hall September 2015