David Batchelor

Chromophilia, 2025

Following our previous collaboration on Chromoscreen 01 and 02 for Tate, Atelier JI are pleased to present Chromophilia, a suite of twelve screen prints by David Batchelor.

Since the 1990s, Batchelor has maintained an ongoing dialogue with colour through sculpture, photography, drawing, writing and printmaking. His influential text Chromophobia investigates how colour in western culture has often been cast as the villain, feared or perceived as a dangerous element. Chromophilia, by contrast, is a direct celebration of colour’s vitality and presence.

Chromophilia 1

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 1, 2025

Screen print with structured catalysed ink and vinyl on Madrid Litho paper (350 gsm)
mm x mm
Paper and Image: 595mm x 810mm
Edition of 25, I HC, I PP, I BAT
£ 1,200 
Chromophilia 2

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 2, 2025

Screen print with structured catalysed ink and vinyl on Madrid Litho paper (350 gsm)
mm x mm
Paper and Image: 595mm x 810mm
Edition of 25, I HC, I PP, I BAT
£ 1,200 
Chromophilia 3

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 3, 2025

Screen print with structured catalysed ink and vinyl on Madrid Litho paper (350 gsm).
mm x mm
Paper and Image: 595mm x 810mm
Edition of 25, I HC, I PP, I BAT
£ 1,200 

Chromophilia is available to buy as a set or individually.

Individual Prints: £1,200 each
Please note: Edition numbers 1–20 are strictly reserved for complete box sets

The Portfolio: £12,000
Includes the complete suite of twelve prints housed in a bespoke box

The Special Edition Portfolio: £15,000
The complete suite, accompanied by a unique, original collage created specifically for this release by David Batchelor.

Chromophilia 4

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 4, 2025

Chromophilia 5

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 5, 2025

Chromophilia 6

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 6, 2025

Each print presents a one-off balance of semi-regular shapes. Torn edges interrupt the apparent precision of the forms, recalling the rough surfaces and imperfect contours of Batchelor’s concrete sculptures.

The collages are derived from an on-going group of spray-painted concrete sculptures, which are in turn adapted from another group of sculptures. That is the way work gets made in my studio: everything is partially connected to what came before it and will have some relationship with what comes after it. As a result, there is no clear starting point or end point.
David Batchelor
Chromophilia 7

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 7, 2025

Chromophilia 8

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 8, 2025

Chromophilia 9

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 9, 2025

I wanted every stack to have its own unique play of colours. I wanted the colours to be as vivid as possible, but also to be dense and as physical as possible.
Screen printing can produce the strongest, sharpest colours, and it can also allow those colours to sit on the paper rather than be absorbed into it. The results are even better than I expected them to be.
David Batchelor
Chromophilia 10

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 10, 2025

Chromophilia 11

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 11, 2025

Chromophilia 12

David Batchelor
Chromophilia 12, 2025

Film

Chromophilia, 2025

In Chromophilia, Batchelor celebrates colour, holding his sculptural works in mind whilst playfully reimagining them as two dimensional colour fields, the geometry countered with torn elements and then committed to print where specialist ink allow his totems of colour to lift from the substrate, edges become present, the sculpture existing once again.

Colour is uncontainable. It effortlessly reveals the limits of language and evades our best attempts to impose a rational order on it. To work with colour is to become acutely aware of the insufficiency of language and theory – which is both disturbing and pleasurable.
0