From the early to mid-1970s, Margo Lewers was working on small-scale paintings that shared many of the characteristics and formal concerns of the painted fabrics; uncluttered compositions, bold colours and recurring motifs of semi-circles and strong diagonal lines. In a personal diary, Margo recounted how difficulties with applying dyes to her painted fabrics had encouraged her to experiment with these smaller paintings where materials could be controlled and manipulated with greater ease.
Despite experimental origins, this selection of works from the last decade of Margo’s life represent a period of artist resolution and are considered more inventive and freer than she had been for some time. They are conceptually and formally related to the best of her late large works, including The Site (1970), as well as her forays into working directly with and onto domestic surfaces such as the doors that she painted in the Palo Alto home of Alister Brass, who she visited in California during 1975.
In the final years of her life, Margo would favour working on a modest scale and with synthetic and polymer paint on masonite or board. The results are nonetheless staggering. They represent the iconography that Margo developed throughout her career – working through academic Abstraction before arriving at a highly personal and almost spiritual iteration of Abstract Expressionism. In these works a bold selection of colour and heightened spatial understanding create gentle movements, giving way to brief moments of dynamism and energy.
