Alvaro Barrington Sky's the Limit -"He Came Out Wit The Phrase, He Went From Ashy To Trashy" September 2023, 2023

Basketball has been a rich source of inspiration for Alvaro Barrington in recent years. In 2022, he designed a basketball court in Bethnal Green, London in part- nership with the London Lions and curated by the Serpentine Galleries. He also began a group of paintings inspired by the dynamism of the game. Striving to ‘make a basketball painting that felt original,’ he carved up the rectangular court into brightly-coloured geometric shapes. Jewel-like in quality, this work evokes both the luminosity of stained glass and the tradition of American landscape painting, so that, as the artist explains of an earlier basketball painting, it ‘hovers between a basketball court and a landscape.’ Here, maple wood and repurposed milk crates are combined with Barrington’s signature use of concrete to frame the painted court, demonstrating the artist’s deft mixing of materials.

Alvaro Barrington’s new installation for the Tate Britain Commission will be un- veiled in the Duveen Galleries at the heart of the building in Spring 2024, and a solo exhibition of his work will be on view at Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin from 18 October 2023 to 27 January 2024.