Geoffrey Holder at Victoria Miro

The exhibition overall eludes life-affirming quality, and gravitas. There’s a telos around surrender. Untamed bodies. A lot about placement of bodies in space, and leaping. They feel chimerical, but grounded in the present and in that regard tie together well. I don’t think there’s a narrative to the show. The painting technique feels raw, a sensual relationship to painting. Thick impastos in some places. A relatively limited palette however, very expressive of colour. Singular colour harmonies almost reminiscent of post-impressionism hues, maybe even Gaugin-like. The selection of works at Victoria Miro Gallery on Wharf Road spans over forty years of the artist’s life, between the late 1970s and 2011. Geoffrey Holder was also a dancer, a musician, a director, a choreographer, a musician, and an actor. Born in Trinidad, he was invited as a talented young man to join a dance school in New York City, where he remained thereafter, and prospered. ‘Woman on Man’s Shoulders’ compelled most notably. The composition—colossal bodies, against an attractive cloudy sky—and the contrast with the textured blue carried momentum. Six flights of stairs above ground with raking views over the city, monumentality is palpable. All the paintings are figurative. Impact comes through forcefully, with an interesting self-awareness about them. Heartfelt yet self-possessed; emotionality does not bother for that reason. They are not spiritual works I don’t think, and exude muralistic quality. This is far from home for me typically at ease with more introverted forms of art. I keep coming back to ‘Woman on Man’s Shoulders,’ in my head. Others are good too. One has joy in it. ‘The ‘Swimmers’ (both) are interesting. ‘Possible Self Portrait’ has authority. Several ‘Untitled’ works however, leave a sense of irresolution—I wonder if the artist would have endorsed the whole selection presented together. I can’t shake that some feel not having come full circle.