Altered States — Curated by Steven Cox — Jérôme Pauchant Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: February 27 → April 11, 2015

Group Show : Graham Collins — Jan S Hansen — Nial McClelland — Evan Robarts — Ryan Wallace.

Steven Cox, artist and curator of the young international art scene (Hunted Projects) presents a selection of artists for the first time in France. Here, they play with the painting’s codes and the use of artwork’s traditional media, using the language of Arte Povera, Nouveau Réalisme or Supports/Surfaces with casualness in a fresh perspective.

United through the diverse selection and manipulation of repurposed materials, the artists presented here collectively explore and celebrate the altered use of both materials and objects, highlighting the transformative potential of manufactured and organic elements. Their original use is distorted and vanishes; showing instead the formal paradox that is specific to art’s desecration.
The introduction of untreated elements from the real world (auto body window tint film, bouncing balls, palm leaves, printer ink and aluminum foil) evokes the “new ways of perceiving the real” dear to the French Nouveaux Réalistes, as well as the use of natural elements and “poor materials” specific to the Arte Povera’s movement. This re-reading is all the while strongly inscribed in the 21st Century’s creative process.

> Graham Collins (b.1980)
Collins’s works span two spheres. The viewer is presented with one shaped and tinted monochrome as well as one reshaped found painting. Through these renowned works, Collins’ explores issues surrounding artist authorship and anonymity by removing any original visible sign of the artist’s hand. From one extreme, a monochrome canvas is hidden from clear view by an abstractly assembled sheet of coloured auto-body window tint film, whilst on the other, Collins’ adoption of an abandoned canvas painting becomes un-stretched and re-stretched upon an unconventionally formed stretcher. In both cases, Collins simultaneously champions materiality and physicality by manipulating the methods in which an artwork is both created and presented.

> Jan S Hansen (b. 1980)
Faint silhouettes of palm leaves span the surfaces of Hansen’s fabric cyanotype works. Owning subtle and delicate markings, Hansen’s works resemble the air of a monsoon prone habitat. The natural, murky and foggy aura of his works is created through the capturing of light, using natural sunlight as his tool to burn through his abstractly applied photosensitive solution and around his spontaneously placed organic materials. Hansen’s works act as organic time capsules, for his works are created in one attempt through manipulating readily available natural materials.

> Niall McClelland (b. 1980)
Printer cartridge inks are priced amongst the most expensive liquids in the world, priced measure for measure more expensive than most vintage champagnes. With this in mind, Niall McClelland utilizes cartridge inks in a less than conventional manner by damaging multiple ink cartridges by hand and allowing their colours to slowly bleed into tightly folded sheets of Japanese linen stock. McClelland’s folded works are reminiscent of complex kaleidoscopic patterns. The visually intense colours repeat and blend, informally commenting on geometric abstraction.

> Evan Robarts (b. 1982)
Discarded lost plastic and rubber balls are stuck between the links of reclaimed steel fences sourced from play parks and the back yards of houses. Robarts’ History Painting’s evoke a certain nostalgia connected to ones childhood. His works suspend time, serving as time capsules that simultaneously bridge the gap between both sculpture and painting. Robarts’ works fluctuate between two conversations: One being temporality, closely tied to a personal nostalgia, as well as investigating the formal qualities of manufactured materials.

> Ryan Wallace (b. 1977)
Exploring the materiality of studio detritus, Wallace works methodically utilizing painterly remnants and material castoffs. Strips of canvas, vinyl, cold wax, paper, aluminum foil and concrete are gradually combined to create visually complex material collages. Built up over time in the artist’s studio, Wallace’s canvases serve as studio based time capsules that reference multiple periods through his practice. His works explore both materiality and physicality, creating an unparalleled dynamism through combining these unpretentious materials and textures.