Looking at Eric Dever’s paintings today, it is difficult to imagine that for years his research was based on an almost exclusively white palette. And yet it is precisely from white that a fundamental part of his artistic journey emerged: an investigation into matter, light and perception that, over time, would lead him towards the natural world and an increasingly expansive palette. In his Career Narrative, the artist describes this evolution as a progression from “reductive abstraction” through “material nature”, then to “biomorphic abstraction” and, finally, to “nature itself today.” It is a sequence that provides a particularly clear way of understanding his work.
In Dever’s painting, white is never simply the absence of colour. It is a material to be observed, dissected and understood. By initially limiting his palette to zinc and titanium whites, the artist discovered what he calls a “spectrum of white,” capable of moving from opacity to translucency. The subsequent introduction of black, and then red, expanded his investigation, leading him to consider colour itself as a form of matter.
