Long Grass 1976

Ivan Eyre made this painting called Long Grass and like much of his work, it embraces a kind of surreal domesticity. There’s a real push and pull between what’s inside and what’s outside. Take a look at the long grass of the title, it's rendered with a meticulous detail that’s almost obsessive. The paint is thin and precise, each blade distinct, building a landscape that feels both real and hyper-real. Then, there’s this kind of odd interior scene, like a stage set, with figures that feel as solid and tangible as the plants in the foreground. It’s like he's creating his own little world, one that looks like our world but is just a bit stranger. Eyre shares a similar interest in the everyday and surreal with the painter Philip Guston, but where Guston goes for the raw, immediate mark, Eyre prefers a kind of polished, unsettling beauty. Ultimately, painting is a language of marks and, like language, there’s no telling the kind of stories that can come about.