V1 GALLERY PROUDLY PRESENTS
;-)
A group exhibition with new works by Ted Gahl (US), Linus Bill & Adrien Horni (CH), Atelier Pica Pica (BE), Milosz Odobrovic (UA) and Jon Pilkington (UK).
It’s a pleasure to present ;-), a group exhibition featuring new work from a diverse group of international artists working with the possibilities of painting. All of them work with an individual idiom, but form an alliance in innovation and play with formal conventions.
They are all exploring and engaging the history and language of painting from a contemporary perspective. Hovering between the abstract and the figurative these works often leave the viewer in an ineffable state. We can describe what we can see; canvas, wood, oil paint, blue, thick layers, brush strokes, a mark or symbol we think we recognize from Plato’s cave and the spatial properties.
Encountering a work of abstract, figurative, conceptual, performative or otherwise, art is often a highly personal experience. We find it hard to adequately describe our experience in written or spoken language and end up with “beautiful”, “bad”, “very blue” or “this reminds me of”.
I recently came across this passage in a very interesting article in the The New Yorker, February 9. 2015, written by Michael Polan, about current medical research into psychedelics.
“Ineffability” is a hallmark of the mystical experience. Many struggle to describe the bizarre events going on in their minds during a guided psychedelic journey without sounding like either a New Age guru or a lunatic. The available vocabulary isn’t always up to the task of recounting an experience that seemingly can take someone out of body, across vast stretches of time and space, and include face-to-face encounters with divinities and demons and previews of their own death.
Having never been into psychedelic drugs, I could still easily relate, this is how I feel when I experience some art. ; -) is an open invitation to go tripping with 8 talented artists, get lost and enjoy it. We can try and talk about it later.
