Art
Andrew Paine’s Cultivated Primitivism At The Gallery At South Hill By Ar thur W hitm an
A
kind of intelligent crudeness characterizes much of the best modern painting. This can lead to a point of confusion—especially in a culturally striving but sometimes inexperienced arts community like Ithaca’s. To throw out traditional notions of polish and completion and still come up with something worthwhile requires discipline and discernment. It’s approach that rarely rewards naïveté or self-indulgent posturing. Knowledgeable viewers will discern the difference between work that is raw and alive and work that is merely awkward or sloppy. It is a cultivated primitivism of this sort that makes the work of local painter Andrew Paine so distinctive. Currently on view at The Gallery at South Hill, his latest solo show features near-monochrome bas-relief paintings hearkening back to the abstract expressionism of the mid 20th century. Following up on his exhibition at the gallery last year, he hones his approach down to something seemingly narrow but in fact deep and rich. Paine’s last show featured work incorporating a wider variety of unlikely materials: plaster, latex, fiber, and burlap among them. Here he largely limits himself to acrylic paint and cast polyurethane foam adhered to wooden boards. The foam is cast in sand, which sticks to the material, giving it the unlikely quality of stone or concrete. And while last year, the artist highlighted his essentially sculptural pieces in varied colors—alternatively evocative of flesh and mineral—here black and gray predominate in every piece. It’s a presentation that many may find forbidding: devoid of color, imagery, narrative—even recognizable processes and materials. My advice is to stay with the work, to try to see the thoughtfulness in its complicated variations and process. This isn’t the easiest show to write about either. All of Paine’s work here is untitled. His pieces are on mostly square-
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A detail from one of Andrew Paine’s untitled works. (Photo: Provided)
shaped boards: ranging neatly from moderately large to almost miniature. Most of these have been painted in all-over black before being collaged with foam elements and further layered with acrylic paint and medium. These are not all-black paintings though. Everything is grisaille—shades of gray, alternatingly light and dark, warm and cool. Gallery director Michael Sampson deserves credit for a characteristically thoughtful selection and hanging, which emphasizes balance and variation. Three larger paintings, several feet square, anchor the gallery’s main back wall. Elsewhere, smaller and often more eccentric pieces predominate. While nothing here is without interest, a handful of quirkier works do particularly stand out. An upright, tablet-like panel (numbered 12) features a range of apparently dripped and brushed textures in warm, neutral, and darker gray over an assembly of foam pieces that suggest a stone wall. Recalling pewter, a small square piece (18) features bulging knobs that seem almost animate. Two irregular squares (22 and 25), one small, the other larger, feature loose grids of blobby, pipe-like forms. Another piece (26)—in a silvery, mottled, medium-gray—features an off-center disc Contin u ed on Page 19
