ANDREA MEDJESI-JONES – VENTRILOQUIST
2013-06-24Andrea Medjesi-Jones’ recent paintings reveal both a highly personal project and a re-investigation of, or reinvestment in, the actual means of painting and its broader cultural ramifications. Works such as No More or Work or Riot show a concern with articulating, through the process itself, surface and depth, gesture, provisional structures, interruptions, breakages, and systems of flow and stoppage. In No More a loose set of floating blocks as a set of open framing devices; these act as an accompaniment to a set of circulating black gestures sometimes dense, congealing into a think uncontained ooze, while at other times petering out into a rubbed trace.
The relationship between brushed gestures, rollered marks, traced imprints, masking, and staining create a porous surface that breathes in different registers. This stop-go of temporal layers creates a sense of evolution, which none-the-less never quite resolves completely. Work or Riot is another example of this almost impossible balancing act of disturbed histories and organic flow; the anarchic carnivalesque celebration of these works is shadowed by something much darker (as might also be seen in the painting Public Image: a kind of sullied, dirtied Matissean Jazz). With its slogan-like text Work or Riot operates like a poster or an announcement, perhaps also suggesting the propagandistic aspect of all images including the vast image bank of painting.
Exhibition runs through to July 27th, 2013
Laurent Delaye Gallery
First Floor
11 Savile Row
London
W1S 3PG
