Assemblage

For my show ‘Assemblage’ at Space Other (based in Boston), I hung a series of 4 paintings and made a site-specific installation using vinyl cut outs. It was the first time that I had a chance of experimenting with ideas of ‘going out of the frame’ full scale. The question I was addressing was the exploration of the relationship between abstraction and decoration. Historical shifts led abstraction to flirt with decoration and design. What is left of abstract painting today? Constructing my work from a repertoire of fluid shapes and lines the vocabulary is akin to the abstraction genre, although my approach to form is resolutely an anti-muscular one. The making process is slow and painstaking. The drawings are carefully executed from various ornamental sources and observation of nature. They are then mapped and fused together into an intricate network onto the canvas or the wall. The collaged piece weaving in and out of the black background created an impression of a form floating in space rather than imbedded in it (see installation shots). These underlying themes where further explored in the group exhibition ‘Abstract Mode’ which I both curated and contributed work to. Also in relation to the outcomes of this research, in November 2006 I was short listed for the 3rd Edition of the Castellon painting prize in Spain. The jury consisted of Franz Ackermann, artist, Barry Schwabsky, Javier Panera, Director Domus Artium, Karen Wright of Modern Painters, and Wences Rambla, Professor of Aesthetics at the University Jaume I, Castellón. I was invited to participate when the curator of the Prize Paco Baragan saw my work as part of the showcased features at CIRCA, Puerto Rico International Art Fair.