DE-Pict, the launch exhibition of a new partnership between Ciprian Ilie (Frameless Gallery) and Cyril Moumen (Gallery Nosco), explore the elusive image – its relevance, appropriation, adapted narratives and its absence.

Louise Fishman, Alejandro Ospina, Tom Leamon and Nicholas Pol lead the way. 52 canvases of Fishman’s abstract and gestural paintings, is an exhibition in its own right. These paintings, building blocks to larger works, form a palette of impulse and impact. Ospina’s canvases have a sense of immediacy, as if to translate the chaos of an apocalyptic present that we might miss. Leamon’s child-like deconstructed human forms offer a compelling insight into the psyche of man that navigates this social fabric. While, Pol’s exuberant painting on found material, sets you on mission to decipher the looming figure. It seems, at once, revelatory and inconceivable to uncover the mystery.

The exhibition changes pace. Lauren Seiden, Peter Pumpler, Niall McClelland and Steven Day explore materiality of paint as they move away from the image. Seiden and Day play with colour and texture to create contradictory impressions of strength and fragility. Seiden reveals an alchemist’s touch, with intensity and repetition of mark making; she bestows paper with a metallic sheen. Conversely, sculptural blocks by Day create an illusion of fragility. While McClelland and Pumpler allow for an element of chance, playing with paint, allowing it to drip, stick, flood and mould the ‘painting’.

These idiosyncratic approaches to the medium are enhanced by our culture today. Images, in its abundance, perhaps reveal much, yet meaning less. While some choose to build upon this excess, others pare down the reference. In their method, it is fascinating to observe how the artist responds to the plethora of images we consume; how they morph digital stimuli, to make sense of the cacophony, to be inspired, to draw a personal narrative. The exhibition draws on this diversity.

Between the artists, they depict a pulse, a debate on image, obscurity and how the painter holds ground; leads. Among many things, the result is empirical.
The strength of suggestion above a statement;
Layered, obscured, fragmented;
Hidden within folds and dribbles.
Perhaps, the attempt is to coerce a response.
Yet, as the gesture gains strength,
The narrator withholds.

Text by Mary George