Brown Ferrari, a forthcoming debut solo exhibition by artist Rory Watson, takes its name from an event early in Rory’s life: after drawing a Ferrari in a family birthday card, he proceeded to colour the drawing in with a red pencil through his eyes, yet brown to everyone else’s.

Brown Ferrari offers a selection of Watson’s new paintings alongside studies on paper. The exhibition displays his recent journey away from monochromatic charcoals, and into a world of portraits in colour. Brushstrokes are laid down in threads, wisps and slaps of paint. Abstraction and form wrestle; entangling and combining, allowing the figure to emerge on the canvas.

The portraits begin from an image of the artist, asking how much is proposed, interpreted and conveyed. What is accuracy and what is vulnerability in this visual theatre of colour blindness?

Since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2019, Rory became one of the 2020 resident artists at the Muse Gallery and has exhibited in group shows across London. He now works from his studio in Hackney, London, and is a current resident artist at Marlborough Primary School with Art Inspirations.