I used to be shocked that James Siena had a second exhibition at Miles McEnery Gallery so quickly after his first exhibition in late 2022. After I discovered that the exhibition was dedicated to Sienna’s work, I hypothesized that it will be both a survey or a documentary documenting a interval within the artist’s profession. I used to be fallacious.
All 31 drawings within the exhibition (created between 2022 and 2023) are procedural compositions, wherein the artist responds to the primary line or strip he attracts in pencil, typically echoing it. Nonetheless, Siena didn’t cease there as earlier than. He returned to his work and did one thing with the detrimental area or the inside of the strips and shapes utilizing one other materials, producing dry traces and a liquid inside. All works are usually not variations. He makes use of two or extra supplies in every portray, together with graphite, charcoal, pastels, gouache, ink and watercolor. In these visually dense works, the colour of the paper turns into a part of the composition, and I regularly unpack the items as I attempt to discern how the portray was made.
I am reminded of Henri Michaux’s work documenting his tragic miracle (1956). Michaud stated of his expertise: “In mescaline, one finds an impartial consciousness, with its personal world of photographs. One learns what it’s to have and to not have a will.” The complexity of Siena Iterations are unfold all through the paper. This, alongside along with his use of colour, distinguishes them from Michaud’s work.
For me, the deepest pleasure in portray is to surrender searching for the factor that produced them, to get misplaced within the intricacies of the composition, and I discover the colours as my consideration strikes between the strips and the connection of the determine to the background. How is it used? The variations between the traces are emphasised. It is enjoyable to see for those who can take one thing multi-faceted and put it again collectively once more. I cannot. There’s a lot happening in every portray that it is exhausting (in a great way) to consider particular person works with out taking lengthy pauses earlier than indulging within the subsequent one. Every portray in Siena requires sluggish and shut consideration.
In an interview with Noel Bodick (Artwork room, February 25, 2014), Siena cites the late work of Sol LeWitt as an affect, “whose grids appeared to sag beneath the pressure of gravity.” Sliding and transferring traces and colours Change animates the drawings, creating the sensation that they’re transferring and in a state of change. The drawings are usually not symmetrical, nor do they repeat the sample of the design. There are simply fixed modifications and variations. Whereas these drawings could evoke reflections seen in transferring water—a picture about to be re-formed—the connection rapidly fades. Siena works in a realm that borders on the wildness of Jackson Pollock and the rule management of LeWitt.
For instance, Siena would possibly begin a drawing in keeping with a algorithm, however he can change or change these guidelines as he attracts. This refusal to accept the established order is why I hold returning to his work. He acknowledges that consciousness is multi-layered and doesn’t attempt to simplify what he does. In actual fact, he did simply the other. His work grew to become more and more complicated and, on this respect, counterintuitive. If one of many legacies of abstraction is the need to pare again and simplify, Siena went in the other way, dealing solely with traces and the areas between.
By means of this exhibition, Siena opens up a brand new path of discovery for herself. LeWitt, Michaud and Jackson Pollock After the breakthroughs of the late LeWitt, Michaud and Jackson Pollock, for whom trying was by no means a simple matter, his work remind us that, all the time There’s extra to see than the thoughts can comprehend. To do that whereas imbuing the work with a way of ecstasy that’s each visible and mental is a major achievement.
James Sienna The exhibition continues by means of February 3 at Miles McEnery Gallery (515 West twenty second Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan). The exhibition is organized by the gallery.
