Pale Blue & Green
dal 24/7/2009 al 15/8/2009
Segnalato da
24/7/2009
Pale Blue & Green
Permanent Gallery, Brighton
Sarah Cooney & Jess Flood-Paddock. This exhibition presents work by two artists who create paintings and sculptures which exist at different points of withdrawal from the alchemical potential of their respective mediums.
This exhibition presents work by two artists who create paintings and sculptures which exist at different points of withdrawal from the alchemical potential of their respective mediums. Playing with the different degrees to which conventional markers of merit, such as skill and virtuosity, can be abandoned, these artists focus their attention on the prospect of reinventing relationships of colour and form.
Jess Flood-Paddock’s practice incorporates painting, sculpture and video. For this exhibition she shows a group of unfired clay sculptures which experiment with the minimum gestures required to model everyday items. A crude figuration is rendered, a process which highlights the difficulty of reconciling the physicality of objects with the knowledge of their infinite complexity (seen in work depicting a pile of newspapers or a mobile phone). Other works are based upon objects which already have a close resemblance to clay in its nascent state, are re-sized versions of worn out monuments, or replicas of broken-off architectural features. Some work is made by anticipation of shrink cracking in clay of a certain length. An exacerbating of the material’s physical limitations is used as a technique for getting closer to its particularities.
Sarah Cooney’s oil paintings seek to explore the expressive capabilities of non-representational painting. Through a frenetic variation of mark, texture, opacity, density and colour, the paintings suggest that within a stringent set of limitations there is never-ending possibility. A system for making paintings is employed which requires that with every new painting the artist expands upon her existing vocabulary of marks. The result is an intense field of painterly negotiations, scatterings of colour, and erratic passages of paint. The work is a demonstration of possibility itself, where the next painting is very close to the previous, while still providing a renewed visual experience.
The artists in this exhibition navigate a lively and irreverent relationship to the materiality of clay and paint. Notions of accountability and explicit content are disregarded in favour of unlocking latent possibilities in the usage of the medium. The idea of the artwork as a site of free-play is embraced as a way to energise both the making and viewing process.
Image: Sarah Cooney, Sinta, oil on canvas, 41×30.5cm, 2008
Permanent Gallery
20 Bedford Place - Brighton
The gallery is open: Thursday - Sunday 1:00pm - 6:00pm Saturday 11:00am - 6:00pm
Free admission