Purple is often associated with power, luxury, and extravagance, from Tyrian Purple as Cleopatra’s favourite colour; to depictions of Louis XIV the ‘Sun King’ as godlike – adorned in purple robes; to the almost religious reverence bestowed on Rothko’s purple colour fields in the Rothko Chapel; or the unhinged, omniscient-like sense of mystery and magic in the chaotic and automatic-writing style works of Cy Twombly. It is at times a comforting colour,  but (more often than not,) with its wild variations into realms of pink and magenta as used here by Fry, it has the power to seem somehow unsettling, psychologically charged, even disquieting in its almost lurid appeal.

But Fry is also concerned with the corporeal and the psychological depths of our psyche: the mind is a complex vessel; it is laboriously studied and houses fathomlessly unknown intricacies and recesses. The human mind is capable of such force and power, yet remains a fragile organ, rich with many incalculable dimensions.

Further, Fry’s work, which has always housed an undeniable level of psychological charge, is often coded in enigma, complexity, and such an obsessive use of purple that it can be conceived as a sort of artistic armor: enticing the viewer while holding them always at bay. In fact, his foray’s into what can be considered ‘pink’ confounds the societal norms of masculinity: in fact, when it was built in 1695, the German Armory (or _Zeughaus_) was stuccoed pink – a colour which then stood for masculinity and power. So to do these works toy with what seems to be a complex idea of masculinity: power, submission, weakness, strength are all dealt with within these paintings. What compels the artist – any artist really, to perform in such a determined, obsessive state?

While the artist has always been reluctant to divulge too much of his work’s intentions, the appearance of the works alone, with silhouetted figures, applied surfaces, repetitive words, an obsessive but abstracted attention to detail, have always maintained an element of autobiography that surely becomes evident to any viewer upon even the most cursory viewing. These are paintings about psychological states: a moving and powerful portrait of ‘Man’ – and likely the artist himself – but viewed with a veil, through subterfuge, as though a poem laden with complexity, or a portrait viewed through a fogged mirror.

The composition of the paintings often depicts two standing figures presenting clashing, conflicting personalities, as two representatives of the same individual. Minds that are present and absent, beautiful and terrible. For Fry, the intention behind using life-size figures is to facilitate the viewer in challenging their preconceived image of the male form and identity. The works suggest a sort of religious reverence we often reserve for artists like, say, Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollock – even the visceral, sheer brutalist physicality of an artist Hermann Nitsch is not an inept comparison. But Fry situates himself with the same sort of conceptual framework often saved for the abstract expressionists – or even literary figures of the human condition like Nietzsche, Camus, Dostoyevsky, by tapping into our psychological reservoirs: these are haunting, emotive, expressive works. These ‘lost men’ are any man, everyman.  Lost men that dissolve in and out of our reading, just as our very own identities can feel obfuscated at times.

So Fry has presented us with a series of Lost Men for us to let our thoughts wander through like a sea of emotion, color, and poetry. We are invited, as viewers, to look both closely and abstractly, and see what sort of revelations we may make about the works, about Fry, and most importantly, about ourselves.

*In the UK alone, it is estimated that 1 in every 8 men struggles with mental illness. A portion of this show’s proceeds will go a mental health charity of the artists choosing.