PREVIEW: Dan Walsh
Dan Walsh has developed a quirky style of minimalism that blends rigid geometry with a sense of play. Walsh uses line as a way to study the application of paint, combining short, transparent strokes to create grids, patterns, and rhythms, all rendered with a Dan looseness of hand. Visually complex, though simple in their execution, the images reveal their creation and revel in the imperfection of the human touch.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo:Paula Cooper Gallery Archive
The importance of time as a fundamental element of Dan Walsh’s artistic approach manifests itself in the depth of his work. His interest in measurements of time correlates with the influence of Tibetan mandalas, with their inherent meditative aspect. For Walsh, the process of creation is as much a form of meditation as is the contemplation of the work itself. Passively, he directs the eye of the viewer, which loses itself in the illusionist logic of the work. For example, something that may appear as a fact at the top edge of the image is transformed into fiction below. His artistic practice ranges from sculpture, watercolour and wood relief to the artist book, and demonstrates his versatile exploration of the concept of the grid. Expanding his investigation into system-based abstraction, Dan Walsh’s new paintings, that are on show in Paula Cooper Gallery, appear effortless and inevitable despite the exacting process of their making. The composition of each painting is grounded along the lower edge and employs a vocabulary of unit-based forms—including lines, circles, lozenges, and rectangles, with some structured around a loose pyramidal shape. Walsh softens the geometry of the grid with movement, rounding the edges to form dynamic compositions illuminated in vibrant color. Subtle chromatic variations in paintings such as Rally, 2023, delight and trick the eye, playing with figure and ground and necessitating a curiously engaged looking. Of another painting in the show, “Call” (2022), critic Bob Nickas has written “The image simultaneously evokes electronic circuitry and Pacific Northwest totems, technological as well as symbolic visual languages, equally encoded—his image seemingly carved to be imprinted / painted. […] Call, in its pared down chromatics and “perforations,” also calls to mind wood veneers that have been incised, or a template from which other images may be generated”. Rather than using preparatory drawings, Walsh has described how the logic of a painting reveals itself to him during its making, and the appearance of each work can change dramatically during the weeks spent systematically layering brushstrokes. This way of working arises from the artist’s equally prolific output in printmaking and artist’s books, mediums characterized by their inherent seriality. Also borrowed from his work with paper is the somewhat surprisingly handmade quality of the paintings, which activate his images with transformative humanism.
Photo: Dan Walsh, Stereo, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 70 x 70 in. (177.8 x 177.8 cm), Photo: Steven Probert, © Dan Walsh, Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery
Info: Paula Cooper Gallery, 534 West 21st Street, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 6/4-18/5/2024, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-17:00, www.paulacoopergallery.com/
