Matthew Allen, Tall Diptych, 2020. Polished graphite on linen and raw linen panel, 154 x 106 x 6.3cm. Courtesy: the artist and Fox Jensen McCrory, Auckland.

Over the last few years Matthew Allen’s paintings appear to have been shunning colour. His patient working of the graphite has forced his substitution of the brush for comfortable burnishing tools as he set about to extricate any available light in the material itself.

In his newest works Allen seems to be abandoning painting along with colour, emphasising the architecture of the support and the fine tooth of the linen he chooses to stretch. These naked elements now sit undressed beside exquisitely made graphite panels, forms that shimmer and seduce in the shifting light, beckoning us closer with their mirror like lure and charisma.

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