Elements of collage reign on the surface of Tomory Dodge’s paintings as well. With Dark Cloud, he layers painting “events” that push and pull—subvert and expose—the underlying pattern that sets the stage. Removing paint is as much a concrete gesture as the thick applications of color Dodge applies to the canvas. Some gestures repeat, like phrases in a sentence, vying for territory on the same field.
Impressions from the sky and sea form a latent background of Sam Reveles’ work. He begins his monochrome paintings with an almost automatic drawing process. Lines are woven until a cell-like network forms. He then works back into the painting, filling in cells intuitively, creating a binary effect where a given space is, or is not, filled. Reveles chooses a horizontal support for his paintings, rooting his work as much in the landscape tradition as abstraction.
Drawing remains a primary component of Steven Bindernagel’s work. In Salt Mine and Suture he applies sharp lines of paint with a frosting bag, building a palpable surface that is sanded down, reworked, and covered. Geometric forms mingle with fluid, atmospheric mark-making. The titles for these paintings are spontaneous derivations from Bindernagel’s personal history, and contact with the natural world far removed from his studio in New York City—another allusion to the duality he explores in his process.
The two works by Steve Roden, lines smote and one for each monk, were created after a one-year hiatus from painting. The paintings reflect Roden’s ongoing experimentation with painting methods and imagery borrowed from personal narratives, architecture, and memory. In each painting Roden builds the image, layer-by-layer, by dragging acrylic paint over the surface with cardboard, and removing masking tape to reveal layers beneath. At first glance, the suggestion of rigging, or latticework, dominate the surface. But the graphic iconography quickly loses its rigidity under closer scrutiny. The thin glazes of color, and edges that bleed, work to diffuse the structural unity initially imposed. Like all the artists in I’ll Not Be In Your Damn Ledger, Roden’s process is an endless transaction between stability and the abyss.
