For the exhibition Untitled #1050 (25 November 2017 – 14 October 2018) this work was displayed with the following label: “There’s a lot of formality and order and ritual in life. For example, getting up is a ritual and I can’t bear to have it interfered with. It’s the only time I feel I have control over events. The process is virtually the same every morning. […] From that order I have to go out to meet the chaos of the world about me.

“The grid is almost an emblem of reason. Its regularity, its predictability, its stability etc, are all about reason and organisation and holding together. But then there is in me another impulse which is basically lyrical; in fact it’s wildly expressionistic. I want both things. It’s the resolution of a dichotomy, and I’ve got to do it in painting.”

—Mervyn Williams, 1981