3/11/2004
Gordon Terry
G-module, Paris
Chapel Perilous: the Aesthete, the Shaman and the Colonial Frontier. Terry's recent works summon the subjects of previous exhibitions: aesthetes, occultism, psychedelia, secret societies, encrypted writing, cosmic systems, excessive luxury, colonial settings, scientific categorization and science fiction, while entering deeper into the supernatural world by means of contemporary shamanism.
Chapel Perilous : the Aesthete, the Shaman and the Colonial Frontier
g-module will present the second solo exhibition in France of new paintings and drawings by Gordon Terry.
Terry’s recent works summon the subjects of previous exhibitions: aesthetes, occultism, psychedelia, secret societies, encrypted writing, cosmic systems, excessive luxury, colonial settings, scientific categorization and science fiction, while entering deeper into the supernatural world by means of contemporary shamanism. His evolving experimental process of poured, conjured pools of acrylic paint adhered onto panels or larger “skins†of paint stretched over plastic stretcher bars, reflect an altered perception of space, time, light, darkness, color and form. At once objects of sensuality and ostentation, the paintings are like an aqueous humour circulating between the aesthete and the shaman in that colonial frontier of the mind: Chapel Perilous.*
In a single drawing to be exhibited in the installation, a precise colonial home rendered onto a sheet of sleek machined paper is ambiguously nurtured or menaced by those same conjured worlds of acrylic paint. Encased inside a solid cast black rubber rococo frame, the idealistic yet dangerous frontier merges with something vaguely familiar; a decadence that can hardly be resisted.
Brooklyn, New York based Gordon Terry has exhibited in the United States and Europe with both solo and group exhibitions. His works are present in numerous international private and corporate collections such as Skadden Arps and JP Morgan Chase and have been utilized in campaigns for Comme des Garçons’ spring – summer 2004 collections.
*Chapel Perilous is a term coined by author Robert Anton Wilson referring to the crossroads one reaches in a shamanic journey, conspiracy research, ceremonial magick, etc., where one realizes that one can emerge on the other side as either a complete paranoid or a total agnostic. The idea is well expressed in the following excerpt from Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger: “When you think you're out of it, you're just in another hall of illusions painted to look like the safe forest outside; and when you think you're inside again, you'll suddenly discover you're actually walking on the road back home."
contact: Jeff Gleich
opening : Thursday, November 4, 6 pm
hours : 2 – 8 pm, Wednesday – Saturday and by appointment
Image: Avatars of a New and Potentially Revolutionary Romanticism, 2004, acrylic paint on acrylic panel, 61 x 76 cm
A catalog will accompany this exhibition.
g-module
15 rue Debelleyme 75003 Paris
metro: St. Sébastien Froissart