Traces and Tears

Artist(s):
• Sandeep Mukherjee

Traces and Tears, is a series of new paintings by Los Angeles based artist Sandeep Mukherjee. In this series of experimental paintings on duralene (a polymer film, that simulates the slick, luminous surface of celluloid), thin layers of paint are spontaneously applied and repeatedly layered using diverse tools ranging from brushes, concrete brooms, carved rollers and sponges. The paint is applied with physical and rhythmic gestures of the hand as the body walks, sits, crawls and slides over the surface creating an array of visual textures. The textures sometimes insinuate representation while at other times remain abstract. The overlapping and intersecting textures of repeated addition create liminal edges that mask the totality of the previous gesture, while paradoxically betraying movement from one moment to the next. Sections of the surface are then erased to leave only traces of history creating new interstices so that these erasures tear and fuse the space while simultaneously confounding the experience of it. Process, image and material jostle for equivalence as each work is suspended in various states of becoming. Although the work engages with certain histories of abstract painting, process art, performance art and textile art, these paintings on the film-like surface of duralene speak more to blown-up stills of the experimental films of Jean Painlevé and Oskar Fischinger than to paintings on canvas.