ART CITIES:London-Brent Wadden
Working within the vein of assemblage, Brent Wadden makes paintings by piecing together his hand-woven weavings to create large scale, hard-edge geometric abstractions. In contrast to traditional painting, the composition is decided during the final stages of preparation and the use of light and dark create a positive / negative space which shifts between foreground to background.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Pace Gallery Archive
Brent Wadden is part of a group of young artists that have gone against the grain of their own generation and have decided to take their time to make things themselves, in effect rejecting contemporary society’s general state of impatience. His work references both the historical and social constructs of craft and modernism through dialogues between weaving and various modes of modernist art making. Brent Wadden presents new works in his solo exhibition “Sympathetic resonance” at Pace Gallery in London. The title of the exhibition refers to external harmonic audio vibrations that can create other sounds and hereby have secondary meanings. By extension, the term can also deal with human energy, a double meaning which was of specific interest to Wadden for these new works. Working on backstrap and floor looms, Wadden creates his large-scale work by weaving linear and abstract forms that he then stretches over raw canvas. Influenced by folk and Bauhaus textiles, the language and techniques of women quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, as well as painting movements such as Minimalism, Wadden’s pieces balance full and empty spaces, throwing the distinction between high and low into flux and using technical mistakes to progress. His paintings complicate hierarchies of media and disciplines, surfaces and textures with his own woven arrangements. Wadden makes paintings by piecing together his hand-woven weavings to create large scale, hard-edge geometric abstractions. The weavings are constructed from various natural and synthetic materials, sourced from various locations. Once completed, Wadden takes a handful or so of the individual weavings and sews them together to create basic compositions. During the stretching process Wadden’s paintings start to take shape. They warp and weft in awkward ways which create imperfections in the already irregular patterns. In contrast to traditional painting, the composition is decided during the final stages of preparation and the use of light and dark create a positive / negative space which shifts between foreground to background.
Info: Pace Gallery, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, Duration: 22/11/18-10/1/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10;00-18:00, www.pacegallery.com
