Nau mai, haere mai, welcome to EyeContact. You are invited to respond to reviews and contribute to discussion by registering to participate.

JH

Hartigan’s Infinity Reprise

AA
View Discussion
Paul Hartigan, Mimic, 1998, pigment on vinyl, 1220 x 1220 mm Paul Hartigan, Matrix, 1999, pigment on vinyl, 1120 x 2200 mm Paul Hartigan, Tag, 2014, pigment on paper, multiple, 600 x 600 mm Paul Hartigan, Virus, 1999, pigment on vinyl, 1200 x 1200 mm Paul Hartigan, Muta, 1999, pigment on vinyl, 1820 x 1800 mm Paul Hartigan's The Infinities at Pierre Peeters Gallery Paul Hartigan, Sky, 2014, pigment on paper,  800 x 800 mm, edition of 15. Paul Hartigan, Scape, 2014, pigment on paper,  800 x 800 mm, edition of 15 Paul Hartigan's The Infinities at Pierre Peeters Gallery Paul Hartigan, Sonic, 1998, pigment on vinyl, 1220 x 1200 mm Paul Hartigan's The Infinities at Pierre Peeters Gallery Paul Hartigan, Spirit, 1998, pigment on vinyl, 2020 x 2000 mm Paul Hartigan, Spy, 2014, pigment on paper, 800 x 800 mm, edition of 15 Paul Hartigan, Spectra, 1999, pigment on vinyl, 1210 x 1490 mm Paul Hartigan, Chromo, 1999, pigment on vinyl, 920 x 900 mm

The light in these images is a central feature. More intense (naturally) here on your computer screen than on vinyl on a gallery wall encountered directly, it comes from afar towards the viewer, while lolly-like translucent shapes hover in between, the darkest ones seemingly closest and blocking out the glare. One is struck by the aleatoric geometry and sensual chroma.

Auckland

 

Paul Hartigan
The Infinities

 

12 June -12 July 2014

This, the second exhibition of Paul Hartigan works at Pierre Peeters, presents printed inks on vinyl on stretchers, and references (and includes) an earlier set of works he made with ‘cruder’ computer software in the late nineties, a sort of painting/printmaking hybrid. Those nineties works were wider (Temple in his 1998 exhibition Flat Out was double any of these) and the complex background patterns slightly ‘muddied’. The newer ones are sharper than the earlier works which used the then emerging inkjet billboard technology and were more intense close up. Both feature the infinity symbol, the horizontally aligned version of a vertical figure of eight symbol that goes back to Hartigan‘s prints, enamel paintings and neons of the early eighties.

These paintings (I’m happy to call inky pigments sprayed onto vinyl via computer programming, that) are about space and looking through the ‘window’ of a vinyl rectangle on the wall. The seductive colour and (mostly) holistic backgrounds caress the eye and lead it through various arrays of floating forms or particles. Not only do you study the background fields (be they camouflage patterns, colour blindness tests, scattered wine gums, rolls of fabric, floating streamers, hundreds and thousands or confetti) and mentally ‘swim’ through them, but the infinity symbols themselves vary hugely. Some are short and squat, others long and stretched; some have accentuated, very crisp edges, others are denser as dark, cut out holes.

The light in these images is a central feature. More intense (naturally) here on your computer screen than on vinyl on a gallery wall encountered directly, it comes from afar towards the viewer, while lolly-like translucent shapes hover in between - the darkest ones seemingly closest and blocking out the glare. One is struck by the aleatoric geometry and sensual chroma.

For me personally, because I happen to have a sweet tooth and like most of us, enjoy eating, some of these food-like images (related to say, various cake-textured or fruit-flavoured works by Rob McLeod and Leigh Martin) affect me physically in ways other than ocular. I feel my mouth and stomach responding. Though it is a slightly embarrassing thing to admit, perhaps it shouldn’t be? After all, some writers, like W.J.T.Mitchell, have been saying for years that one’s senses can never be experienced purely in isolation - least of all the visual - when, say, talking about painting. The senses are mixed up together (semiotically and symbolically ‘leaking’ through the processes of thought and language) and cannot be pried apart.

Then there is the formal relationship between the flat, mottled, inflatable, or delineated infinity symbol and the field, which often uses contrasting degrees of focus. Sometimes the background spreads forward to encroach over the horizontal eight-form, obliterating parts or most of it, sometimes also draping it with a gentle haze, or making it buckle or twist. The meaning of the ‘limitlessness’ motif can be applied to the illusionary space behind the picture plane, or beyond the rectangle’s four edges, or the movement of a particle eternally ricocheting around within the curves and intersection of the symbol itself.

There is also a strangely subtle humour in Hartigan‘s use of the solitary infinity symbol, a single boldly stated entity that - eschewing a state of plethora - contradicts its own celebratory avoiding of containment. As a hovering, clearly defined motif with obvious limits, it is easily identified at the centre of each work: a repeatable icon that can be constantly refixed; a floating buoy or inflatable raft that’s anchored - bobbing on a sea of boundlessness.

John Hurrell

Print | Facebook | Twitter | Email

 

This Discussion has 1 comment.

Comment

Owen Pratt, 9:15 p.m. 6 July, 2014

Also if stared at intently for a while the infinity symbol and background leave interesting phantom after images.

Reply to this thread

Recent Posts by John Hurrell

JH
Jae Hoon Lee, Mother and Child, 2024, inkjet on smooth pearl. 1500 x 1500 mm

Looking Through (or At) Jae Hoon Lee

IVAN ANTHONY GALLERY

Auckland

 

Jae Hoon Lee
Internal Landscape Part II


16 March 2024 -13 April 2024

JH
Outside installation of part of Shiraz Sadikeen's The Natural Rate, at Treadler. Photo: Alex North.

Sadikeen @ Treadler

TREADLER

Auckland


Shiraz Sadikeen
The Natural Rate


8 March 2024 - 23 March 2024

 

JH
Still from Marcus Coates, The Directors: Lucy (2022) Single channel HD video on loop, projection, 21 min, 24 sec--⁠presented at Yellow Brick Road, courtesy of Artangel.

Attempting to Describe the Experience of Psychosis

Te Tuhi /Auckland Arts Festival

5 inner city sites


Marcus Coates
The Directors


24 February - 24 March 2024

JH
Ava Seymour, Manhole, 2023, Maribu solvent screen-printing ink on aluminium, 1120 x 910 mm, unique.

Maternal Appurtenances

COASTAL SIGNS

Auckland

 

Ava Seymour
Heels of Mothers


14 March - 13 April 2024