GERALD LAING

Selected Citations and Comments

The visual allusions to medieval manuscripts and heraldry and the deliberate two-dimensional picture-space are immediately noticeable in Gerald Laing’s paintings. Though these paintings are not intended to represent palimpsests, they are more than arrangements of calligraphic forms and so the allusions are important for interpretation.
The origin of Red Icon exemplifies his attitude. The initial image which interested him was a partially obliterated Byzantine painting of a Saint. All that remained was a halo and a name in indecipherable letters, yet the painting had once been a communication of Christian faith. Red Icon points to the transience of the symbol, deriving this new icon-symbol out of the remains of the old. The medieval fragments in these paintings are the framework within which he transforms the mystical and chivalrous themes of the Dark Ages into twentieth-century parables.

Robin Cormack, Paintings by Schmuel Dresner and Gerald Laing, exhibition catalogue, St Martin's Gallery, London, 1962