Right here’s just some nice paint slingers: Delacroix, Neel, Auerbach, Van Gogh, Grotjahn, Cecily, Hockney, Henry, Freud, Peyton, Ryman, Hals, Schutz, Schnabs, Lisa Y, Monet, Manet. And yeah, I’m gonna go there and toss in Woll.
Beginning in 2016, I lived with a Mt. Wilson portray of Andy’s as a result of I used to be drawn to the seriousness of the play within the numerous yellows within the palette and the best way the paint was pushed round with a quiet athleticism, an intuitive confidence. It’s that stroke, coupled with a deep understanding of colour, that I’ve seen time and again within the paint slingers. It’s by no means the identical method in fact, authorship proper, however at all times laid down with a understanding hand. May be sharp, slashing, exhausting, might be fluid, lyrical, free. And every thing in between. He had a option to go then, however I noticed the beginnings of one thing there, within the passages, percolating, stewing. It took a decade however what’s now right here, earlier than you, is a revelation.
All of us have a voice inside that doesn’t make a sound however we hearken to, that splendidly meddlesome root down there that can burrow towards an thought, perhaps take maintain and information us to the precipice, level us towards the leap, that place of the brand new, if you’d like it. There is no such thing as a straightforward method when going there. Change. Course of. Shift. Yeah, the mountain stroke remains to be there: within the corners, within the garments, behind them. And there’s just a few Wilsons hanging. However the artist is usually melting away from the mountain as a floor to the summary by bringing within the determine, the music now single notes not simply chords. And with this new album of quintessence on the partitions, Andy has executed one thing calm and wild: Work displaying thought.
Andy advised me he doesn’t cry a lot however he mentioned when these work go away the studio, he’ll tear up. I can see why; after a lot intimacy with these souls, he’s introduced his personal tender power and fallen in love with these individuals. He didn’t simply create these work; he’s magically conjured a brand new form of presence. You may sense them in their very own private abstraction. No, these usually are not merely work, they’re spirits.
Portraits have been painted forfuckingever. However look, everybody up there isn’t only a illustration of an individual, these depictions reside, respiratory, current. Aside from the self-portrait, nobody is taking a look at us, these are individuals contained in consciousness and goals. They’re grounded, lovingly captured in heat oils ceaselessly with an uncanniness and curiosity that’s extraordinary and great. Profound as a result of they don’t seem to be simply flesh made into work however work of individuals alive and rendered in deliberate intense strokes that information us to really feel they’re right here of their ideas, reflections, inside.
These are little miracles. And sure, in portray, that is what transcendence seems to be like. —Jeff Poe
https://www.nightgallery.ca/exhibitions/andy-woll5/press-release
