Monday, May 14, 2012

opening salvo, east hampton

detail: Glound 15, 2012, glue, wire, acrylic on canvas
Timothy Bergstrom, Glound 


New space, new art, new view at Halsey McKay, debuting with works by Chicago artist, Timothy Bergstrom and drawings, paintings and sculpture by Denise Kupferschmidt in the new and very awesome upper gallery (next post). 


Glound 4, 2011, glue, wire, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24"

Bergstrom's works are dense, dynamic and structural. They seem to straddle myriad lineages that bounce from Futurism to Constructivism to crystallography, setting up camp among an array of idioms the likes of Antoine Pevsner, the Brooklyn Bridge, communal spider webs and subversive knitting. Even the soft geometry of Ernesto Neto dovetails into a similar mosh pit of structural abstraction, movement and big thinking. Still, these works are all Bergstrom's own, staking claim to new territory within gesture and process.

Tantra Timbre, 2012, glue, wire, acrylic and pigment on canvas, 60 x 48"
  
The works on view here, ten in all, pit swirling voids against small convulsions that pulse across the canvas. As the artist's process accumulates, its evidence forms into ribs, ridges and starburst shapes. Bergstrom builds his paintings as much as he paints them, loading the surfaces with gossamer lines that burst open like fireworks or elaborate quasars.

Glound 5, 2011, glue, acryloid, wire, acrylic, pigment on canvas, 28 x 24"

In reality, the bones of this work are derived from the phonetics and tonal qualities of language. In the process of building, assembling and gluing the elements into from, Bergstrom's words are buried under pigment and glue. He calls the works, "Glounds" -- a pseudo term derived from combining "glue" and "sound," two elements that are integral to his creative process.


Glound 15, 2012, glue, wire, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48"


Don't miss Timothy Bergstrom, Glounds, on view through May 29 at Halsey McKay.

Next post: Denise Kupferschmidt, Motifs, also at Halsey McKay





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