ART-PREVIEW:David Ostrowski-The Thin Red Line
David Ostrowski’s work is characterized by the use of a reduced color palette on vast, nearly empty fields covered with occasional gestures and marks. In a minimalist and seemingly nonchalant style, the artist applies lacquer, spray paint and found materials – which he uses also for his collages. His compositions are imbued with contingency and the impossibility to revise or correct an action. The rough canvas resulting from these coincidences and mistakes invite the viewer to an haptic experience in which each of Ostrowski’s elements seems to appear simultaneously by chance and beauty.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Sprüth Magers Gallery Archive
For “The Thin Red Line” David Ostrowski’s first solo exhibition with Sprüth Magers in London, the artist has developed a new body of paintings and materials that serve as a meditation on the color red. Growing up in the artistic family, it was the natural path for Ostrowski to become an artist. The painting was his occupation since always, and it was easy for him to reach the limits of figurative painting very quickly. When there was anything left to say, the process of removal from the pictorial narrative towards the incomprehensible was natural and a part of his attempt to create something new, something still unknown. For him, painting is like looking the meaning in the nonsense. He is not interested in understanding, Ostrowski is trying to make his work simple as more as possible. Using the inexpensive materials, he stopped to paint in oil because of its great possibilities. Spray brings the limitation of the expression and forced him to work quickly. There are no corrections and only counts the first shot. His creativity excludes the power to make decisions, but strong gesture and spontaneous style are allowing him to reveal unexpected and hidden possibilities. In his “F” series of works, Ostrowski explores the conception of the error in painting, by using in the process of the creation equally the left hand, though he is a right-handed. In that way, he makes paintings that present a surprise even to himself. The letter F indicates the German phrase Fehler Malerei which means painting error. Aiming to create a tension, he stopped to manipulate himself and lost control, believing in the content of the painting and the autonomy of the medium. He uses to draw sketches, but during the time, he realized that his expression has more freedom when he is able to make the mistakes. The series for “The Thin Red Line” was begun earlier this year as part of a new red phase in Ostrowski’s practice, which has focused previously on minimal interventions of blue spray paint and applied elements on largely white or neutral canvases. The color red had appeared in Ostrowski’s work as early as 2009, but it has taken nearly ten years for him to return to the color exclusively. The cultural relativity of the color red was an initial point of interest for the artist; it connotes affairs of the heart for some, has become almost universally synonymous with danger, and represents good luck in other cultures. The artist applied found materials from his studio, elements such as cotton, wood and paper, to canvases which have been painted in acrylic and lacquer.
Info: Sprüth Magers Gallery, 7A Grafton Street, London, Duration: 28/11/18-19/1/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, http://spruethmagers.com
