Game Over Wood, metal rope enamel paint 46x22 12” 2023 Concave painting, latex primer, flashe paint, gel medium, copy on wood w/joint compound 12x12x15” 2016
GERALD WOLFE STILL-FULL-NESS SCULPTURES & PAINTINGS 2016-23 | TURNPARK ART SPACE WEST STOCKBRIDGE MA By Jeanette Fintz There is no room for nonsense in Wolfe’s sculptures and paintings and in that they have a lot in common. Each piece is honed down to an economically compressed level of means. But there are clues to their origin story and lineage revealed if you pay attention. Wolfe works with serious materials that a builder would use; concrete, wood lath, fiber glass screening and housepaint, and a palette of grays, whites, startling touches of blues and burnished or chalky tans. You’d think the work would be intimidating and cold, but it’s not. There is humor and humanness in the drawing decisions and paint handling, and in telltale physical details that are openings into what often first appears to be primarily, a closed - down surface. For example, the very smallest wall sculptures in plaster and wood, appear clumpy and somewhat awkward constructions until you understand that these are composite forms that have rough planes of plaster sheathing uniting them, as though covered over in volcanic ash or sediments of earth matter. Two pieces entitled (Small) Object with
28 • OCTOBER 2023 THE ARTFUL MIND
Photography Courtesy of Artist
Odd Opening (2018) have tiny rectangular spacesat the bottom revealing a possible through - line that would help the viewer imagine what might be a pathway into these shuttered volumes. So, the small dark rectangle indicates a line in space, a constructivist premise that is casually thrown our way. Wolfe is so comfortable with the language of constructivism’s formal principles that he uses them casually and playfully, so you don’t really notice. The first word that came to mind as I viewed the work was “sediments”, a word that references time revealed through layers of matter. Reviewing his bio for this article, I discovered that he had been a history major prior to focusing on visual art, so this word intuitively made sense. Wolfe’s work is about time, motion, and loss of mobility or rather the acceptance of becoming a form that one might not have expected at the beginning of the process. Hence the humor and surprise factor that bring his work to life.
Three paintings on fiberglass screen all entitled Weave (2016) employ the only rhythmic, gestural application of paint in the show and the only inclusion of what might be called “air”, the space between marks, in the surface illusion. Less interesting or unique individually, they are part of the origin story of the pieces that come next. These paintings, Convex Painting, Concave Painting (2016), and Cloud Painting (2017) compress and flatten the gestures and planes into a summary of the story — into an outline. It’s a great line and the ellipsis that created it is the reason. These juicy, intensely blue lines show Wolfe’s hand, a funny direct and archly simple, descriptive meander. They add delight and make these paintings some of the most engaging pieces in the show. Powerful wall sculptures in wood that divide white space into projecting and receding segments add to the backstory of surface compression later displayed in the paintings. They bristle with energy. All entitled Cumulus (2016) beautifully lit