Lines & Other Curves

Lines & Other Curves

Dec 6, 2012–Feb 16, 2013

December 6, 2012 – February 16, 2013
Middle Gallery & Gallery 4

Featuring Matt Irie and Dominick Talvacchio

In Lines and Other Curves we are presenting the separate but related directions our solo practices have taken since our latest collaborative work in 2009.

Irie’s paintings ask what can happen when the starting point is a “finished” paint drip. The drip, removed from its ordinary context as a house painting mistake, is a fully formed object that has an inherent movement of its own. When applied and layered repeatedly in a modular fashion, the movement of discrete drips can complement, contradict, and confound one another in opening up spaces that are as illusionistic as they are inviting. In considering the way that the material process is front and center in experiencing these paintings, Irie likes to think of that process as one of using the uncanny drip to simultaneously create and solve a puzzle.

Talvacchio’s recent work shares with Irie’s an aesthetic sensibility and an interest in the dynamics and tension of repetition. Here though the original movement is one that could be called the eros of mathematics, the creation and play of the objects that belong to it. The material presence given to this eros, this life force, becomes subtly erotic, and the works invite an experience of losing oneself not in chaos, but rather in the order so created. Many of these works on paper and video pieces are referred to as “palpations,” suggesting the art of touching a body in order to sense a mysterious presence within it.

At their core, both bodies of work share a spirit of surprise, an obsession with the unexpected and often mesmerizing outcomes of the movement of seemingly simple parts.