Anticipating the Memory

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on August 13, 2014 at 11:09am

Curator’s Comments:  

 

I am immediately attracted to the transporting, gestural sensibility of these abstract and figurative works, though many have a rather somber and dark color palette.  Anticipating the Memory is particularly engaging, although the suggestive organic forms dissolve into non-objectivity.  The division of the cooler top section evokes a feeling of sky, but the piece is also divided in a graphic manner with the aqua blue lines.  What is quite striking is the play between the more random and dripped painterly brushstrokes and the more cleanly orchestrated stepped lines.  These steps provide the viewer open entry into the space, while they also descend into amorphous abstraction.  I’m also drawn to the small black rectangular shape that appears to hover on the edge of the dividing horizon; both as a contrasting visual element as well as the suggestion of an architectural structure.  Bottled Water and Neighbors are both very intense paintings offering a more direct figural narrative.  I’m unsure of the associations intended with the gold leaf in Neighbors, as the embellishment doesn’t seem to surround anything precious or beyond the profane.  I instead see the pig face/mask as tapping into an animalistic read of the psyche, as if a gateway to the subconscious.