Sam Gilliam: Late Paintings

From October 11—November 12, Pace Gallery in London’s Hanover Square is presenting an exhibition of paintings by the artist Sam Gilliam, who passed away earlier this year. The show, titled “Late Paintings,” encompasses large-scale paintings and works on paper produced in the last two years of Gilliam’s life, highlighting the influential nature of the artist’s practice and his singular take on abstraction. Viewers who experience the exhibition will find Gilliam’s works devoid of form, with the exception of the surface on which they exist—like the beveled-edged canvas Gilliam pioneered in the 1960s—instead harnessing a certain kind of energy by way of thickly-textured paints, splatters of color, and other markings that suggest a full arsenal of techniques and a performative approach to creation.