Holton Rower: Pour Paintings

New York-based painter Holton Rower (born 1962) makes complex paintings by carefully pouring incredibly large quantities of doctored paint onto plywood. However, the simplicity of such a description belies the complex and varied results. The compositions showcased in this colorful volume might seem spontaneous, but are in fact highly premeditated: during their creation, the paint flows over the surfaces at the artist's instigation, timed precisely to spread and dry at just the right rate. The rivers of paint may sometimes fracture, clump up and extrude. Fissures and zigzags abound, as do U-turns and smears, but the predominant flow of the paint triumphs.