Elyss McCleary, Drooping Style, oil on linen, 51cm x 41cm. 2017

EXTENDED GESTURES

Peter Aldrich Matthew Engert Elyss McCleary Khi-Lee Thorpe

The title for this show is borrowed from the writers Claude Cernuschi and Andrzej Hercyznski who in their essay, The Subversion of Gravity in Jackson Pollock’s Abstractions, describe Pollock’s employment of gravity as a means “to extend the duration of his gestures”.1 In easel painting, finding new ways to form gesture, be it, by the brush or through other more unorthodox means (Brice Marden with his extended stick serves as a good example), has been an important pursuit by many artists.

The four artists in Extended Gestures build on this endeavour. Their marks are records of bodily activity, as they pursue methods that are provisional and intuitive. Bold strokes of colour are applied with careful attention to the stroke’s intensity and speed. They innovate ways to disperse paint, be it, through maximum thinning, or strokes that are at once, abbreviated and extended. In Extended Gestures the gesture is distilled, the painting process renovated and the very orthodoxies of easel painting challenged.

Aaron Martin
Curator

1. Cernuschi, Claude, and Andrzej Hercynski. "The Subversion of Gravity in Jackson Pollock's Abstractions." The Art Bulletin 90, no.4(2008):616-39.

Opening Friday, May 18th 6-9pm
Exhibition runs: May 16th -June 2nd 2018

Arcade (back space)
suite 2, level 1 / 119 Hopkins St, Footscray
open wed - sat 12-5pm

(Arcade Project Space is a Five Walls initiative)