Between Fossil and Ghost

To archive or to create an archive of images and motifs is to index an emotive registry. A gesture that signifies desire. The splitting, rearranging, and mirroring of art historical pastiche as a way to pervert the archive. In hopes of opening up the potential for a new non linear narrative and hybrid emotive registry. The idea of mirroring or splitting the self is an integral part of this grouping of paintings. In all the works the figures depicted seem to be present but formless, something ancient while also an apparition of a time to come. Their bodies are open and flowing into their immediate surroundings as if part of one singular organism. Figures are split into two, mirroring each other, analyzing one another. Its unclear which are illusion and which are concrete. There gestural, glowing liquid form depict the doubling of self into some kind of visual index of marks, something made of visual language. In this fracturing of human form the body becomes demented, a fissure in the interaction between the rational mind and the consumption and processing of information. Seemingly causing a collective dementia amongst the figures depicted. Is this the past, present or future? This fissure results in a fracture of not only time but language and sign interpretation. The figures and scenarios depicted while descriptive give no linear narrative or complete view of each character’s morality or intent but are rather open to interpretation. The process of creating these works is another mirror of there content. The art object as a light filled residue of process a negation of the perfect and complete form. Figures and spaces are erased, re painted, scraped off or completely deleted, presence and absence hold equal weight. The imagery itself is a collaging of everything from classical painting motifs, authoritarian/spiritualist symbols and comic imagery. All function on the same level one no higher than the other. There allure and relations come from there sense of touch and vulnerability to one another including the viewer. This hybridization of images and loss of information in there joining becomes a reflective cypher for the works as a whole. Like the Golem that haunted the dreams of the ancient Kabbalists or crumbling buildings in gothic literature the emotive space created by the telling of a story is the central function of the story, the specificity of language generates a space beyond the literal word that gives more insight into the meaning and intent of the work then direct definition. In the same way the descriptive image holds no equal weight in relation to its viewers as a whole. Evan Gilbert (USA, 1993) lives and works in New York City. He graduated (MFA) at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Between Fossil and Ghost is his first solo show at Antoine Levi gallery.

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