A Monastic Trio

Three good souls are performing, and improvising, their way through a weekday afternoon; large paintings are taking shape in the barn where they congregate. The trio combine music, movement and the slow application of bright acrylic paint. They address the canvas with gestural emphasis, and respond to one another with…

Marcus Coates & Henry Montes, A Question of Movement (2011)

The less seriously he takes himself, the more his audience appear willing to suspend disbelief. This – it seems to me – is the peculiar genius of artist, and sometime shaman, Marcus Coates. His East London gallery is currently showing a four-year-old film in which he visits ‘ordinary’ people in their…