Free

Free brought a decade of Martin Whatson’s practice into a RexRomae exhibition in Dubai International Financial Centre in 2020. The presentation traced the relationship between the Norwegian artist’s controlled stencil imagery and the energetic colour that repeatedly interrupts it.

Grey figures and restrained backgrounds provide the setting for dense fields of marks, calligraphic gestures and spray-painted colour. What appears ordered or familiar is opened up by a second, more spontaneous visual language. Across the exhibition, that tension offered a way to follow the development of Whatson’s work over time.

The show, which ran until 3 December, continued RexRomae’s relationship with the artist after Revive in California. It brought the sensibility of his public murals into a concentrated gallery presentation, allowing viewers to look closely at the techniques and recurring ideas behind an immediately recognisable practice.