Addison used this email post unedited for his show with Joyce Crieger in Boston in 2000. 14 years ago! It is still valid in regards to his work at The Prince St Gallery in New York, except that the organic forms are placed on abstract shapes.It was the other way around back then.Issues of time and event are still apropos. I wonder if my use of the word provisional in the sixth line can contribute to the ongoing discussion of provisional painting.
What intrigues me about your work is the evocation of the passage of time. Every painting seems to be a resolution of sorts of some conflict or tension that predates the painting and creates the stage for it. It comes together in the moment. Like a winning shot in a basketball game. It has this provisional quality to it e.g. you have tied the series but still have to win it. But that moment of the shot, a three pointer, is what the painting is about. And for the time being there is a sense of relief(resolution). Hidden underneath is what leads up to that moment. What is between the lines is the past and the thick rich gesture of the lines is that shot that won the game.
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| Green Thumb 2014 |
What intrigues me about your work is the evocation of the passage of time. Every painting seems to be a resolution of sorts of some conflict or tension that predates the painting and creates the stage for it. It comes together in the moment. Like a winning shot in a basketball game. It has this provisional quality to it e.g. you have tied the series but still have to win it. But that moment of the shot, a three pointer, is what the painting is about. And for the time being there is a sense of relief(resolution). Hidden underneath is what leads up to that moment. What is between the lines is the past and the thick rich gesture of the lines is that shot that won the game.
The white on white(blue on blue) the loss of the disparity between ground and line in the newer work seems to point to the importance of every moment. The final shot won the game but everything in the past was of importance. It about "being there". Presence always. And the will behind it. It seems to be influenced by minimalism but without the arrogance, the absolute certainty of say Ellsworth Kelly(also there is a timelessness in Kelly). In your work there is coming and going, coming into being and passing away of each moment.
Your painting is not "about" anything. Which I think you are happy to hear. It is not descriptive. Nor are you trying to express your emotions. What does that leave? The structure of lines and spaces in between sets the stage for a conscious/unconscious dichotomy.
Sort of like what is on the surface of the water that comes from above(conscious) and the hints of the hidden from below(unconscious). I think your work is about attention. Attending to what rises to the surface at any given moment. Maybe the lines represent your conscious attempt to "be there" and the spaces are what is inevitability left out. Or cannot be comprehended. The play between what appears and what disappears or retreats whenever you try to pin it down. It is still the "time" thing because there is a recall of marks, gestures from the past which are changed in the present .
And new shapes that grow out of the past. Also each painting happens at a certain point in time and therefore cannot be the same as what came before and what comes after. In sum, it is not spectatorial, like you are looking at anything that becomes an object for your subject, nor is it about self expression. Like you were screaming about something. It is very silent. It is about moments in the flux of time where you attend to a play between seen and unseen. Maybe that is where the game metaphor from the last message comes in.
It strikes me that in my discussion about your work up until now I had left out the issue of color. I focused on the structure and gesture and what it meant, but color ...
When I first saw your work I was touched by the color mood, the overall affect of each painting. It was something you could swim in. It was totalizing but not dictatorial as though the different colors enjoyed being together, they liked rubbing shoulders with each other. Some sort of crazy cocktail party. You walk in and say wow this is quite a party and after it’s over you are ready for the next. You've invited lots of guests. Which can translate into influences and how you let them play out in your work.
Hence the issue of time: these influences unfold in time and so do you and each time you dip into the stream it is different. You can find new guests showing up. It's not a socialites ball with only pedigree guests. None of this hitting the viewer over the head over a lifetime with the same image of me me me .
I remember being bugged by this zen monastery I went to because it seemed over orchestrated. One exquisite zen moment after the next. Too perfect. Your work has chaotic moments, messy, just for a moment. Then whoosh...the basket goes in.
(October 3 - 28, 2000; Creiger-Dane Gallery, Boston)
MARTIN MUGAR , August 2000
Addison passed away surrounded by his family on Jan 3, 2018
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