After freeing himself from associations with figuration via the Kitchen Sink School of the London Group as well as a brief dalliance with inspiration provided by the St Ives painters, by the late 1960s, Irvin had embarked upon a period of play and abstract experimentation. Rejecting the notion that one needed austerity to achieve gravitas in painting, he began to employ a gestural approach to colour as his mature work emerged, a catalyst in this shift was his interest in the New York School and artists such as de Kooning and Kline from the American Abstract Expressionist movement. As artists began adopting empty buildings for studio spaces in east London, Irvin had become a fixture of the 60s studio scene and simultaneously taught at Goldsmiths throughout this period. The present example exhibits the sweep and spray techniques typical of Irvin’s mature work, with illusions of depth created in the upper section of the work through the inclusion of light grey cloud-like forms below the smudged primary colours, balancing the vivid blocks of pigment below. The overall impression is reminiscent Irwin’s later experimentation with screenprinting as a medium, a foreshadowing of his later use of the squeegee as a brush.