[SEOUL] 10 Paintings: Johnny Abrahams

[ENGLISH]

 

Abrahams’ new works mark a departure from his earlier kinetic line and pattern

paintings, whose optical focus conjured moiré patterns and other visual effects.

With the new oil-on-canvas abstractions, characterized by large geometric forms

painted in bold color on raw canvas, Abrahams creates visually harmonious,

meditative paintings. The sharp compositions—in black, or blue—focus on

structure, rhythm, gravity, and negative space.

Abrahams differs from other hard-edge abstractors in that the work expresses both

rhyme and meter, through repetitions and subtle interactions between the painted

forms. Spreading the oil paint across the painting with a giant palette knife, subtle

and arbitrary ridges appear upon Abrahams’ surfaces which at first appear to be

smooth and flat. This process results in an accidental language of movement and

depth within the clean, pure abstractions. These sizable yet balanced monochromes

possess a remarkable quietude from their perfect edges and brushless application.

Progressing out of the optic, detailed line work found in his earlier paintings into a

more formalist or minimal language, drama is expressed not through pattern but is

instead conveyed in the subtle interactions of the seemingly massive forms and the

very delicate points of contact between these brutal objects resting on the canvas.

Many of the compositions derive from the forms suggested by his detailed line

paintings of the past few years, zoomed in close. Rather than abandon the line

work entirely, the shapes and compositions in these new works are arrived at by

magnifying tiny portions of an earlier line based painting. When the lines and their

interactions are scaled up and augmented into a large scale composition they then

read as sculptural forms. Abrahams is exploring the vast ontological realm between

line and architecture, this exhibition existing in the liminal zone between painting

and object.