Born in Penzance in 1976, Frost studied during the second half of the 1990s first at Falmouth College of Arts and then at Bath Spa University College.
Since the millennium he has exhibited with increasing regularity both locally and in the metropolis, a situation reminding us of Viv Lawes' observation in the 'Guardian' newspaper of an art " absorbed by the changing light and its interaction with the countryside" on the one hand and one that is "rigorously intellectual and urban" on the other.
And within the palpable gestalt and concrete object-hood of these wall-bound canvases there lies a fathomless mystery, an enveloping mood and atmosphere that speaks of an unfolding temporal as well as spatial experience.
However immediate their power of communication these works are indeed slow in the making, a dozen or more acrylic layers painstakingly built up with the perfectionist's attunement to surface facture. pitch or colour saturation.
At present Frost is exploring various colours from greens and greys to blues and blacks. .VOL TS NO. 6.0' and VOLTS NO. 6.1' (2006) use low key colours, metaphors of the night or of the infinitude of cosmic space perhaps, which contain suggestions of hidden colours no doubt embedded within successive layers of pigment. These canvases, like night, are spectacles of repose and contemplation
The oscillation within the 'Volts' series between singular or compounded linear elements is consistent with the way these works operate differently from near or far or in natural morning or arti?cial evening light.
Such concerns are classic in spirit, revealing an artist who deals in the uniquely visual sensation of light. A child also of a technological age Frost – inspired by the minimalist sculptor Dan Flavin's electric light tubes – has experimented with ?uorescent light installations. Would a strip light collaged element perhaps replace a painted 'volt'?
These explorations belong also to the tradition of Goethe and Chevreul, the colour theorists, and to the Divisionist's analysis of colour as products of broken light. Whichever way he now develops Frost at thirty possesses a conceptual and technical assurance and maturity that bodes well for the future not just of his own project but that of the ongoing tradition of modern painting in Cornwall
PETER DAVIES is an 'art critic' & an author on St Ives and modern British art. His book 'St Ives Art 1975-2005' was published in 2007