Adibi’s Heady Brush of the Elemental

By artefuse On 05/29/2012 · Leave a Comment · In New York

Study for Da Capo (2012) by Elise Adibi

Evoking a Modernist vibe and a tad Minimalist, Elise Adibi had her second solo exhibition in New York at CHURNER and CHURNER in Chelsea. Arte Fuse braved the rainy Thursday last May 24, 2012 to attend the opening for the show “Da Capo”.

The title is derived from the musical term “da capo” literally meaning “from the head” or “from the beginning”. It instructs the performer to repeat a section of music. Adibi presented six-foot square canvasses that floridly makes a play of starting from a beginning point and repeating.

In her drawings, she simulates the grid of the canvas by tracing it with graphite or filling in with charcoal where one line ends and another begins just under the surface. Textural smudges and smears act as breathing points to produce a dynamic image. With her paintings, Adibi did a reversal of her earlier technique where the base material (graphite) is now added to the top of the painting’s surface. The works were covered with a base of gold or copper then painted it with a thick impasto crowning the top with graphite powder. The undulating pattern and swirls of movement may seem preordained but in fact it definitely expresses her freedom and the starts/stops are not endpoints. The nature of each piece is more of what’s becoming.

Abstracts can veer off into purely gestural but in the limited set of materials for this series – canvas, carbon powder, charcoal, and oil paint – that there is a strong sense of philosophical control with the play of repetition and precedence. The results are very rich and pleasantly unencumbered by brush strokes that might fall off the canvas or going beyond its edges. Skillfully negotiating her way into each piece with a conscious hand to harness rather than let it run wild, Adibi gives us a beautiful scale of repetition that is not tedious.

Just like a seasoned soprano singing an aria that at the drop of a command, the seamless recall to start again from the beginning is indeed aesthetically fascinating to behold.

Elise Adibi: Da Capo / On View: May 24 – June 30, 2012

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday (10 am – 6 pm)

CHURNER and CHURNER

205 Tenth Avenue (between 22^nd & 23^rd Streets). New York, NY 10011

article by: Oscar A. Laluyan