GUYANESE-BORN Frank Bowling moved to London aged 19 in the 1950s and after serving in the RAF went on to study at the Royal College of Art, despite earlier ambitions to be a poet and a writer.

Exhibitions followed and Bowling, frustrated at being pigeonholed as a Caribbean artist, moved to New York in the mid-1960s where he pursued an abstract art influenced by personal memory and history.

His work has been widely exhibited in numerous exhibitions and permanent collections in Europe, Britain and the US and Land of Many Waters features new and recent works demonstrating the continued exploration and experimentation with the painted surface for which he is renowned.

Some — alongside key paintings from the last decade — have been created during the pandemic and they include As Above So Below (2020), with its haunting hint of a horizon, or Oriented Light (2020) with its vibrant yellow, red and pink gesturing back to iconic bodies of work such as Map Paintings. They introduce new audiences to his signature scale and luminescent sense of light and colour.

Shown alongside older works, they create threads that can be traced back to pivotal moments in s relentless exploration — there are references to his childhood in Guyana, while El Dorado with my shirt collar (2019) is a reminder of the narrative strands woven and his use of geographical gestures illuminate works such as Essequibo Dawn Just Above the Equator (2020).

An art writer and critic in his younger days, poetic titles offer playful entry points into his textured canvases, while materials from a personal archive reference his relationship with Bristol and
emphasise the autobiographical elements of his practice.

Alongside these, items from his London studio evoke the sounds, colours and textures of his working life.

Painting in his studio every day, his work ethic is second to none. A pioneer who has shown dedication and dogged persistence throughout his life of painting, writing and teaching, he has made a strikingly original contribution to British painting and art history.

Runs until September 26, box office: arnolfini.org.uk