Shapes In Silence : Galerie Dutko - Paris

Shapes in Silence

“Shapes in Silence” is Gallery Dutko’s invitation toward an immersion in an atmosphere of quietness and meditation. The two artists on display, German Matthias Contzen and British Tom Henderson, work in highly contrasting media and materials: if Contzen occupies the physical space with large tridimensional objects, and his material of choice is the classic and candid white marble, Henderson expresses himself through objects closer to notions of the two-dimensional and employs the modern materiality of cast acrylic. Both artists display a preference for a single material coupled with an overarching monochromatism. Yet, the entirety of polished and candid surfaces of both marble and acrylic appear interrupted by discontinuities provoked by the crafting processes imposed onto them. Contzen grants marble a completely new aesthetic, one which recalls lace. Henderson, on the other hand, paints the acrylic glass with solid colours sections of which are later removed due to process and chance. At first regard, the resulting geometric patterns appear still. Yet, on closer inspection, these patterns invite the viewer for a deeper inspection, to look from different angles and to contemplate different material transparencies.

These are two artists who regard art as an aesthetic experience, an emblem of modernity that they choose in order to contrast their quiet work with the convoluted and fast-paced world they live in. By negating the interference of their living circumstances, the two artists recall a tendency which has its roots in Minimalism, an art movement that surged in 1965 as a categorical refusal of the humanist mission of art.[1] Like Minimalism did, both Contzen and Henderson celebrate art’s contemplative aspect and ask us to connect with the artworks’ sacredness and its capacity to appeal to our senses. Their artworks transport the viewer to notions of the pure and the abstract, which are better performed through classical forms via a preconceived intellectual approach that includes mathematical systems, geometric forms and manipulation of chosen materials. The honesty of their works is delivered by their formal attributes, which directly derive from their investigatory intentions. As in Minimalism, they celebrate rationalism and a mathematical way of thinking, while sustaining “an aesthetic position in which the construction of an object would point toward an immediate, legible geometry.”[2]

            As spectators, the physical connectedness with these works delivers immediate healing. Art has recently been proposed as an effective cure for illnesses including anxiety, depression and stress, a recognition that comes linked to the acknowledgement of the museum’s as the ‘modern cathedral’.[3] American art historian Carol Duncan also suggests the ‘museum as temple’ or ‘as ritual’; she advances that museums are places “that could open a space in which individuals can step back from the practical concerns and social relations of everyday life and look at themselves and their world with different thoughts and feelings.”[4] Duncan’s observation is useful to remind the need for the contemplative in art. Gallery Dutko is, through Shapes in Silence, transformed into a modern cathedral, a locus of sacredness and contemplation, and where healing and meditation happen.

a centre, Contzen conveys the need to regenerate wholeness and togetherness of humanity

Tom Henderson

Tom Henderson (b. London, 1976) is a visual artist whose work examines the boundaries between painting and sculpture. As a trained sculptor who always wanted to be a painter, this enquiry has become an end in itself and lead him to deliver another possibility, which one could call ‘sculpted paintings’. What are sculpted paintings? These are artworks that stay on the wall, an aspect relating to painterly sensibility. But when looked at, the works ask the viewer to gravitate around them. And this relationship between the viewer and the artwork recalls the experience of sculpture. This is the agency of Henderson’s practice: his compositions are alive, they demand the viewer to notice their changing behavior according to his physical position and the light that falls on them.

Henderson works in series, a procedure that allows him to investigate deeply the technical and conceptual aspects he focuses on. His practice can be divided into two main streams: flat and texturized series, especially Flatland and Drypoint, and others containing tridimensional elements such as Arclight and the Corner Series. The finest details of his compositions result from the variations caused by his use of plexiglas, the paint and the manipulations he performs on and within the colored surfaces. The results encompass transparent and/or opaque surfaces caused by the juxtaposition of colors and layers formed by the different textures of line, color and transparency .

Flatland, a series conceived in 2017 and 2018, displays monochromatic painted surfaces that at first glance appear smooth and stable, yet through the viewer’s wandering a three-dimensionality is revealed. This variation is born from his manipulation of the surface through texturizing brushwork coupled with subtle striations through the paint when still wet. Flatland allowed him to revisit the history of the grid, an influential structure within modern art. As Rosalind Krauss advanced, the grid’s hostility to narrative promotes silence.[5] Several abstract artists have used the grid’s structure to perform discoveries, despite the difficulty of such a task. In Henderson’s Flatland work, the fluid freehand lines that run through the painted surface destabilize the grid’s silence and promotes a connection with the drifting viewer. This is most evident in the works After You and Elsewhere, a white and black pair of works that may also work as a diptych. The series evolved to works such as Luck of the Devil, a triptych of pure colors: red, yellow and blue.

The Drypoint series of 2018 is an exercise of meticulousness where lines are purposefully scratched into a plexiglass surface with the aid of a technical tool, the dry point needle. These repetitious incisions are then charged with paint and finished with a principal surface colour. The industrial tool, which originates in printing, allows him to control the composition, while configuring it a modern allure. The resulting surfaces looks smooth; the scratching performed onto the front and back of the plexiglas delivers compositions that display a sense of movement and softness that is most commonly found on textiles fabrics.

            Henderson’s work teaches the viewer that painting and sculpture are not antagonistic media, but rather that they can coexist in one and the same structure. It equally reminds that modern, industrial materials can equally recover handcrafted techniques, and recall the smoothness of timeless media such as textiles.

Dr. Leonor Veiga

Lisbon, 2019