VICTOR COHEN STUART

L’Opera, 2009

latex acrylic and oil based enamel on

wood, 48 x 24 x 3

Victor Cohen Stuart: New Paintings (October 2010)

Notion

Seasons

Volcano, 2010

latex acrylic and oil based enamel on wood, 24 x 48 x 3

Lianen, 2009

latex acrylic and oil based enamel on

wood, 48 x 24 x 3

Other Work

Spellbinder

Pearl, 2010

latex acrylic and oil based enamel on wood, 24 x 48 x 3

Red Veil, 2009

latex acrylic and oil based enamel on wood, 12 x 48 x 3

Margarine, 2010

latex acrylic and oil based enamel on wood, 24 x 48 x 3

White Feather, 2008

latex acrylic and oil based enamel on

wood, 24 x 24

Untitled, 2008

latex acrylic and oil based enamel on

wood, 24 x 24

Nightgale

Quest

Lianen

Victor Cohen Stuart Installations

When Victor Cohen Stuart last showed at SLATE in 2010, his most recent works were deeply-layered accumulations of spattered paint, some as dark and thick as tar, others cut through with cracks and crevices. Heavy and intense, these were serious statements about painting, illusionism, material and mass. 

For his 2012 solo exhibition at SLATE, Stuart presents an entirely new body of work. In the three large panels from 2011, we see the first evidence of this transition: the cracks are gone, the backgrounds are lighter, and the drips are  looser, with more open gesture. Moving away from the overall patterns and textures of 2010, Stuart has begun experimenting with asymmetrical compositions here, with a background that changes mid-painting or a single vertical line that signals a shift in tempo. These works also share an interest in the single drip as a form itself; with solid color and clear edges, they hover on the boundary between line and shape, ultimately communicating in a much more graphic manner. 

In his small triptych and many of the 12x12 pieces, we see the introduction of pools of paint, which eventually became his primary focus in 2012, culminating with the series of four multi-colored 16 x 24 -inch paintings that are the highlight of the exhibition. Whereas most painters use brush-strokes to apply paint to canvas, Stuart has shied away from this, revisiting the techniques of throwing and pouring used by Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painters in the 1950s and 60s. But whereas Kenneth Noland tried making paintings with hardly any evidence of paint at all (his poured pigments were thin and 'stained' the canvas) Stuart has taken the opposite approach – delighting in the physicality of the material and celebrating its mass.

Stuart's new method is laborious, as it may take days for a pool of paint to thicken enough to resist–and yet still yield to–the next color that is poured on top of it. So his process becomes a kind of dance in slow motion, punctuated by passages of frenetic scribbling that bring passion and life to these organic scapes of cells and orbs. While accident and improvisation loom large in this practice, the artist's decisions remain evident, in each choice about contrast and color, and in each little circular drop that has been applied with painstaking intention. The result is a composition that looks lively and random but is whole and complete.  

One thing that has remained consistent over the last decade is Stuart's use of three-inch deep boxes as his support. As before, he wraps his work around all five sides of the box, creating a three-dimensional object with views that change as you move past it. Many of the surfaces also have a low relief, a result of how the various passages of paint have dried and shrunk at different rates. Despite the fact that they were created with an additive process, these passages appear to be carved away, and so demand that we relate to the work as a sculpture as well as an image. 

Whereas Stuart's older work had a strong sense of downward motion which related to the verticality of the wall it hung on, his most recent works have been made horizontally and then tipped up on the wall, defying gravity with their floating forms. They have a lightness of being which, combined with brighter hues and more complex color combinations, reads as a joyous celebration of the freedom and power of the human spirit. 

Victor Cohen Stuart: painting (October 2012)