#prisk

Making it to the opening of this painting show was a treat. We strolled into a relatively empty, small, white underground space. It had the feel of a little military bunker which suited the minimalistic nature of the works themselves. The art pieces themselves were abstract shapes and forms interacting within a limited colour pallet. They seemed inspired by a very minimalistic idea of expressionism, giving very little away to the viewer but a simple feeling. The images were mostly quite clean, and the shapes repetitive oblongs and marks. The impressions I experienced from the paintings were those of ‘niceness’ and seemingly domestic notions.

The minimalism of form left one with very little to grasp when attempting to interpret the works, and I found myself struggling to glean any hook by which to begin any interpretation. It seemed to me that the artist was attempting to dissociate from the very concept of meaning or interpretation. The shapes interacted by only in very repetitive ways which made it seem as if the shapes weren’t important themselves at all.

The use of colour, however, was simple. Domestic kinds of pink and blue, a light shade of cream painted in a texture offered hints of adobe walls, and the childishness of the light imagery eventually began to insinuate domestic life and childhood. After much time (and a drink) I began to feel like the images placed so far apart on the walls offered a kind of series of glimpses into the vague unconscious impressions we gather as a child from the world around us. The lightness of it was uplifting and the huge spaces between small works re-emphasised that I was glimpsing into something which was staggered in its relationship to one another such as long periods of time or large distances.

I felt that though the work was hard to read, or project onto, I did eventually uncover some personal meaning in it. Was this the artist’s intention, or was that the exact opposite of what he was describing? The hostility of the space combined with the humility and light calming pallets gave an interesting juxtaposition which both confronted and invited one into the gallery.