LONDON.- Marlborough Contemporary presents So I turned myself to face me, a group show that explores how a work of art reflects back on the viewer in an act of self contemplation. Taking its title from David Bowie’s song Changes, the exhibition examines the vernacular through which artists interpret contemporary culture whilst re-evaluating established genres and conventions.
Jackie Saccoccio’s work follows the tradition of action painting and abstract expressionism, reclaiming the masculine territory that is commonly associated with the genre. David Czupryn’s paintings revisit surrealism; their flatness and digital aesthetic executed by hand, using a traditional painterly technique. Tony Matelli subverts the logic of classical sculpture with formally unexpected juxtapositions and Charlie Roberts’ contemporary figurative watercolour paintings refer to a range of sources from mannerism to graffiti via Hammershøi.
Exploring youth and youth culture in his paintings, Roberts’ social observations are laid down with a dream like quality. In Lavender Juice the subject is literally looking back at herself and the viewer in the mirror in an act of self-confrontation.
Lorimer street shows a group of young adults lounging around on a bed, smoking, reading art magazines and surfing the web on an Apple laptop. The artist often feeds off signs, symbols and icons present in today’s visual landscape. Frequently jumping subject matter and style, Roberts’ work reflects the scattered mind of today’s Instagram addict. By its very nature, popculture is already in the process of becoming outdated and displaced.
Tony Matelli’s mirror piece Hearts and Faces offers the most literal form of looking back, the smeared surface prevents a direct reflection and complicates the vision of self, subverting subjective clarity. Matelli’s Warrior is a classical male nude. The artist’s medium is a Duchampian readymade – a generic concrete garden sculpture which he heavily treats with a sandblaster to achieve an excessively decayed look. The sculpture reveals its inside and looks back at the viewer despite missing facial features.
Warrior also triggers historical references, such as the Greek Riace bronzes. Matelli plays with the classical form by placing remnants of a lobster on its head and shoulder. The debris, being made of cast bronze and painted bright orange, emphasises the random juxtaposition of highly recognisable elements. It is also a humorous reference to the original Riace bronzes; raised from the depths of the ocean, where they had lain for over a thousand years, their smooth bronze surfaces were covered by accretions of marine residue.
Jackie Saccoccio’s large abstractions only appear to be non-representational at first sight. Looking at portraiture for inspiration, her painting functions as the retinal afterimage, no longer representational but somehow referring to given forms. There is something unreadable to the viewer that might appear abstract, but functions in a more rigorous way. The central circular element subconsciously conjures up the outlines of a face. Saccoccio’s painting reflects the desire often felt to read for a human presence in the work, despite its apparent abstraction.
Using her own physical force, Saccoccio lifts and turns each canvas transferring paint from one to the other but instead of thick expressionist clusters, thin fluid paint is running over the canvas’ surface from various sides forming an infinite constellation of patterns. The stroke and its origins are impossible to trace. There is no beginning and no end. The work is the result of the artist’s spiritual quest trying to connect with space.
David Czupryn’s work looks back uncannily at the viewer, hovering between representation and abstraction. The painting exudes tension by being impossible to resolve formally. Having begun his career as a sculptor, Czupryn decided to focus on painting, revisiting his previous sculptures as source material. Czupryn paints the three dimensional in a hyper-flat illusionist technique, creating surface tension and contributing to the viewer’s suspense. The artist limits and manipulates perspective, building up the background with materials such as wooden or marble boards. The objects in the foreground seem to protrude from the surface of the canvas; haunting paintings that reflect back at a puzzled viewer.
