PIERS
SECUNDA
Paint Assemblages
23 November - 23 December
VIEW
WORK
NETTIE HORN is pleased to present
Paint Assemblages, a solo exhibition of recent work by British
artist Piers Secunda. Working essentially with paint in its primary
form, Secunda's practice takes the materiality of his medium back to
its fundamental properties - creating three-dimensional paint sculptures
where the medium itself and its structures and surface become the subject.
|
Vertical Collage. Series 6 No 1, 2007, Industrial
floor paint and household paint |
The opposition of painting and sculpture is inherent within the two
media. Paint has a tendency towards flatness, sculpture in its
essence is three dimensional. But paint has a sculptural quality
too. Glenn Brown explores that in his flattened reproductions of impastoed
paintings, most notably his renditions of Frank Auerbach. He also investigates
the problem from the other side with his sculptures made from paint.
Flatness is such a well explored and written about idea it is strange
that pure paint sculpture is an uncommon use of the medium. Formally
there might be some analogies to clay sculpture but paint, like Damien
Hirst's formaldehyde, is not just a material but a medium for ideas.
Piers Secunda's work has developed out of practical and theoretical
feelings for paint. Because this angle is under explored his work has
a look entirely of its own (certainly it looks nothing like Glenn Brown).
It carries suggestions of assemblage and can evoke the patina of empty
billboards with their accumulations of torn posters. The paint
Secunda uses can take the form of detritus of a sort, sometimes it is
molded specifically but almost as often it is not. There becomes,
therefore, a feeling of the entropy by which natural processes take
back control over even human products such as paints.
|
Because this is a new use of the form it is an unfolding story and works
here reveal attempts to apply this visual language in different ways.
There are movements towards the mechanical with industrial fittings
molded from paint and there are references to everyday life with text
and images transferred onto paint surfaces, with some references to
specific events. It is a measure of Secunda’s excitement
at the possibilities that lie open to him.
Piers Secunda has work in collections internationally and has exhibited
extensively in both the United States and the UK. Recent exhibitions
include “The Lucifer Effect” at Primo Alonso Gallery; “Dorian
Gray” at Vegas Gallery and “Noel Forster and Piers Secunda
Paintings and Constructions” at the Chelsea Future Space.
Installation image, Title Pending
II, 2007, Industrial floor paint and household paint mounted on MDF
Title Pending I, 2007, Industrial floor
paint and household paint mounted on MDF
© NETTIE HORN |