Seth Pick: Velvet Breath

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In a state reminiscent of Locke’s prime sensations, sight and smell are activated in a mode of pre-cognitive impression as the pungent smell of paint and white primer announce themselves to the mind while the eye is captured by the spectrum of Goethe’s color wheel with dark, primal colors bleeding into one another in preparatory strokes on the gray concrete wall.

I mention the materiality of the place, because it is the material aspect of this work that distinguishes it from much contemporary art, which often seems in a rush to leave its materiality behind in search of some distinct concept or ironic critique. Instead, this work is shot through with an awareness that it is out of the contingent and fragile components of color and texture that the meaning of these artworks are produced. To say this, however, is insufficient, as the work uses this awareness of its own material aspects, to move well beyond those components. Instead, these works dwell in a space that invites the viewer to reflect on the work philosophically. It does so not only in its unique play with color, but by presenting images and combinations that lead the viewer unawares back to origins: to contemplate ontological depths, exploring the emergence of life out of matter, the choate and meaningful against a background of infinite space.

(Stephen Klemm)