Saturday, October 21, 2017

Julian Stanczak "DUO" @ Diane Rosenstein


Succession, 1989
Acrylic on canvas
60 x 60 inches







Offering Violet, 1970
Acrylic on canvas
70 x 60 inches



Mystic, 1976
Acrylic on canvas
38 x 28 inches




Touching Purple, 1986
Acrylic on canvas
70 x 70 inches





Interactive, 1989
Acrylic on canvas
44 x 22 inches





Offering White, 1991
Acrylic on canvas
33 1/4 x 24 1/8 inches



All the complications of vision are present with these works, paintings that reference color, pattern, and rhythm.  The restlessness of of each one reminds more about the value of a present moment as they eye continuously shifts to locate something.  Such was the movements of earlier Op Art attempts  as well. If the tension of structure and contrast within each is not enough in terms of line and shape, then color itself can be seen as complicated within the viewing experience itself AND my photographic representations. If you look at the first image, both the whole composition and my details reveal the diversity within a single image. If that's not enough, the camera's inability to grasp some kind of "truth" about the primary viewing experience should also be cause for contemplation.  Such a medium and the media it represents ought to be taken in proper context and perspective not for a means to a simple end of pleasure (but partially why not and in spite of my own partial distaste of these, partially because most won't look past the Op dazzle and partially because they are too uniform in my opinion) BUT rather too consider the symbolic language offered here about how something as seemingly simple as color, form, and pattern can give way to complex thoughts about difficulties of understanding, perception, and possibly how such things change over time.  Taken together over a thirty year period, it is also remarkable to consider the shift, slight as it is within a single body of work, one that asks how to ponder and reconcile the relations of two or DUO as the exhibition title states. Just compare the first two paintings in this post as a starting point; they are twenty-nine years apart yet could have been made the same day off the same palette. Change and an understanding about change is subtle at best.

No comments:

Post a Comment