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The practice of painting begins with a series of choices. Why paint? What to
paint? How to paint? What color to use? What medium, and so forth. Deciphering
these patterns of decisions, as well as their relevance to the perceived imperatives
of creation, are elemental factors that add to the aesthetic experience. This
recent group of paintings by Brazilian artist Gabriela Machado pose as many painterly
questions in their apparent simplicity as they do pictorial pleasures. Why, for
example would a painter working exclusively with one color, title the exhibit,
Red (Suspended) and select Alizarin Crimson as the pigment of choice? There have
been precedents for this kind of coloristicly limited gestural painting, Franz
Kline being a “New York School” example. Yet Kline’s black on
white slashes have little of the range of coloristically intensities that Machado
has realized through the translucence of her skidding brush strokes. Because
of the extreme transparency of alizarin, a spectrum of shades, from an almost
black in the thicker globs, to a rich rose pink at the terminus of the brush’s
charge are visible. This variation of intensity gives the painted strokes an
unusual spatial illusion, with areas of shadow and highlights. One could say
on further comparison that Kline’s paintings are examples of a Gothic, puritanic,
Northern elegance. Machado’s calligraphic marking, on the other hand, displays
a curving erotic dance-like rhythm. The crimson embodies associations that are
as sensual and essential as wine and blood.
Technically, though
painted in only one color, and apparently in one shot, these are not monochromatic
paintings. The saturated white grounds seal the texture of the canvas weave to
a supple smooth finish. This facilitates the kind of low friction slipping that
Machado needs for her visual dance. Alizarin crimson is one of the oldest pigments
isolated for artistic use, and has been found in ancient Greek murals. During
the Middle Ages it was used to dye military cloth and the madder plant from whose
root the color was derived, was the object of intense mercantile as well as political
struggles. In 1868 two German chemists developed a synthetic Alizarin Crimson
from coal tar and this development represents one of the greatest breakthroughs
in pigment chemistry.
In both practice
and concept the works of Machado are completely contemporary. There is a wide
pool of conections with regard to the forms, shapes, and marks inscribed by the
artist, though deference to the grand tradition of painting is paid through compositional
references. In RSC/08 a torso-like form, with its shoulders anchored in the upper
corners, could allude to the central figure in Ribbera’s Martyrdom of St.
Bartholomew, or to Titian’s Decent from the Cross. RSC/07, the largest painting
on view, resembles nothing so much as a detail of the hanging looped paper installations
that the artist weaves from long rolls of paper attached to the ceiling. One
of these works was suspended in front of RSC/07 and its coiled paper bands had
a striking proportional echo to the width of the painted brush strokes, like
a free-floating effigy in white. A group of smaller paintings on paper caught
my eye because of the use of a circular form. These works all contained a round
shape where the brush strokes coalesced in to a solid configuration that presented
a contrast to the more strictly linear calligraphic qualities of the larger works.
There is a lusciousness to these small orbs that put me in mind of Cézanne’s
apples, with an open space that reads as a dimple where a stem might attach.
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