ART-PRESENTATION: Sam Falls
Sam Falls’ work is inspired by the beauty, unpredictability, and ferocity of nature, and attempts to, as he says, “Traverse issues of abstraction and representation in a meaningful way”. Combining colours, textures and subject matter, the final works are visually enticing and provoke the audience to contemplate their many possible meanings.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Eva Presenhuber Archive
For his new paintings made in upstate New York, Sam Falls first dyed the canvases in natural pink clay pools made in the road by a heavy storm. Then working through several different rainstorms to create multiple layers on the canvas, the artist began with the plants found at the edge of the woods, moving deeper into the forest for each exposure to gather different plants. While the layering of exposures created a depth of field within the image mimicking that of photography, the physical movement into the forest to access the trees and leaves translates into the work as something more experiential in a landscape image that is true to nature. Working throughout the night, each paintings gathers layers of plants and pigment, as well as rain and time, leaving an impression not just of a forest at night, but the feeling of a full night passed awake. In his ceramic works Falls also uses found plants gathered from specific areas around Los Angeles and pressed into hand-made tiles of clay. As much as the final object relates to the rich history of ceramics in California, each work holds plants from a specific area, such as a hike in Griffith Park. As with the rain paintings, the plants in the ceramics are gathered democratically while moving through a landscape. Upon viewing the works from opposite coasts together one notices the distinct aesthetics of place. It’s not just in the individual plants, but the environment painted through the inference of their collection. In his “Terrazzo” works, the artist uses natural gemstones with healing properties to create a surface that is both visually inviting and metaphysically mending. The bench-like forms raise the question if the viewer should sit on them, answered by the healing gemstone curtain installed at the end of a hallway acting as a gesture of care and concern. In an unspoken homage to Felix Gonzales Torres, the curtain extends empathetic contact and reminds us of the shared commitment to the viewer from the artist and artwork. The black & white photos bring together the beginning, and the development of his oeuvre. To Falls, photography is the initial point of his work, to which all of his different working processes are connected. By substituting chemicals and technology with nature and time, he pushes forward an environmental, metaphorical understanding of photography.
Info: Galerie Eva Presenhuber, 39 Great Jones Street, New York, Duration: 9/9-29/10/17, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 11:00-18:00, www.presenhuber.com
