Mothers — Laura Langer at Ilenia

Laura Langer presents Mothers at Ilenia, London.

Installation view of Mothers, a collection of paintings by Laura Langer at Ilenia gallery, London

‘The figurative painting is the mother of a Discharge Painting. A Discharge Painting is a place where the unwanted is welcomed, where I put the impulses not taken, where I clean my brush, where I can keep going. There is some justice in chaos when something ugly, unwanted at first, is exposed, revealed, and given value just by the fact of existing and insisting on its existence. It gains its right to live.‘ — Laura Langer

Orange and black abstract painting by Laura Lander entitled Concentric Circle 2 — Laura Langer, *Concentric Circle 2*, marker and acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm Photography: Dominique Cro.

Currently on display at Ilenia, Shoreditch, Laura Langer’s Mothers exhibition transforms the gallery through a series of paintings — one of them, Discharge Painting 2 (2024), is a large abstract composition crafted from the remnants of residual paint from another painting included in the show, A Violent World (2024).

Functioning almost as a living colour palette, this painting serves the dual purpose of both artistic expression and a practical method through which the artist cleanses her paintbrushes, while simultaneously contributing to the visual tapestry of the exhibition.

Also on view are works from the artist’s recently conceived series of Concentric Circles. All originating from a single centre and sharing the same axis, the Concentric Circle paintings embody a sense of growth and expansion as each circle contains and embraces the other. The geometric paintings possess a versatile quality, and are understood by Langer to function as adjectives in a sentence, altering the quality of the accompanying paintings.