Chromatics: Parts I & II
- Artists
- Zach Lieberman
- Lars Wander
- BYMA
- Jonathan Chomko
- Mustafa Hulusi
- Nima Nabavi
Verse is pleased to present Chromatics, a group exhibition dropped in two parts, exploring how various artists observe complex notions of colour within their compositions.
The exhibition takes the infamous 5x5=25 exhibition in 1921 as a reference point. At the exhibition the Russian Constructivist Alexander Rodchenko exhibited three canvases of a single colour. Rodchenko’s representation of the monochrome was the beginning of new and radical movements within art history; it also marked the end of ‘bourgeois’ ideas of the easel painting. The artist famously stated: ‘I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue, and yellow. I affirmed: it's all over.’
The notion of breaking away from traditional ways of understanding paintings and colour specifically within art is a starting point of exploration for Chromatics. While historically, artists such as Frank Stella attempted to represent colour uncontaminated or as he said ‘to keep the paint just as good as it was in the can’, the artists included in Chromatics employ an even purer version of colour. Using colour on digital screens and essentially composing directly with light allows them to preserve colours’ most potent and vibrant qualities. This is particularly evident in the work of Jonathan Chomko, where the slowly changing composition of the monochrome creates a rich and mesmerizing experience.
For the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, colour was a means to recapture childhood experiences, but colour is often highly symbolic within the socio-political terrain. These kinds of dichotomies are felt in the work of Mustafa Hulusi where the split images refer to a combination of memory and visual cultural overload. The video is jarring, uncomfortable but simultaneously beautiful.
how you see me 7 and 8 by Lars Wander’s are part of a series of work that derived from his fascination of mixing paints. The sparse and abstract compositions explore how the human eye innately attempts to read narratives and figures even within randomly computational generated images.
Nima Nabavi’s heavily layered, grid-driven compositions are greatly inspired by the work of his grandfather who was a geometric artist for over fifty years in Iran. Nabavi employs colour as a means to create form and depth within his compositions. Similarly the work of BY -MA is heavily informed by traditional patterns, yet their practice is deeply anchored in universal issues such as gender and labour equality that are explored through abstraction.
Zach Lieberman creates his mesmerizing art works with algorithms and coding, yet the artist also explores building experimental drawing and animation. Lieberman applies computation as ‘poetry’ and as an extension of an artistic medium to create the most entrancing pieces.
