The form of the diptych – two apparently equally sized panels coming together along a central seam, be it in either vertical or horizontal disposition – has been a leitmotif in Stephen Bambury’s oeuvre almost from the beginning of his painting practice.

In Of the Properties of Materials, the two panels touch at the central point of two vertically oriented panels. The point at which they meet might be read as a horizon line around which the panels are reflected or at least appear to mirror each other and, whilst it is true that the essential characteristics of the composition suggest this, each panel is subtly but critically distinct. The skewing of Bambury’s geometry is apparent at the edges where the painting’s coloured corners swell beyond the implied orthogonal structure.

This painting assumes Bambury’s more recent material culture where micaceous iron filings are combined with emphatic acrylic hues. The rust has a visual slowness against the animation of the coloured corners. Its absorbency of light and its insinuation of a quietly shifting organicism have been explored mainly in the groups of works known as Cartesian Circles and Insert Crosses though, like all of Bambury’s diverse material possibilities, they migrate from group to group over time.

This vertical diptych speaks very clearly to Bambury’s central notion – that of seeking a ‘resolution of duality’. The painting is divided into upper and lower panels, the disposition of colour along the left and right-flanking corners and the swelling and recessional dynamics of those colours, the vertical and horizontal axis of the cross form. On and on through his painting practice, Stephen Bambury compresses apparent opposites into relationship only to make one coherent and beautiful whole from the sum of the parts.