Fusion: The Openness of Abstraction in Thought and Practice
3D Virtual Exhibition

The Gallery LTD
37 N 15th St, Brooklyn, NY 11222, United States

We generally think of fusion as a force which brings things together through intense heat yet, a more nuanced interpretation is the idea that through fusion, all substances are rendered down to the same fundamental form and then differentiate into more complicated varieties of “stuff”.

This is what is at play in Wade Bonds' eclectic presentation of four very different artists united by an authentic and sincere usage of their base material, be it paint or found object. They accomplish the act of image and form creation with a clear acknowledgement that "what you see is what you get” in other words, the artist may present you with a narrative or images even so they are deeply engaged in referencing their medium in order to do this. 

The show splits down the middle: two of the artists; Heath and Holland who engage in overtly abstract practices using the fluid or geometric proclivities of paint to story tell or create abstract form and pattern. Meret and Hobaugh instead generate meta-narratives with found objects (or incredibly convincing renderings of assemblages of objects). In his curation, Bonds illustrates that abstraction is a set of actions, not simply a means of image-making. While we can recognize similarities to our perceived reality in all of the artists’ works, these cues that seem familiar are in fact part of a reorientation that requires much closer investigation. 

In the paintings of Thomas Edwin Heath (born Newport News, VA) paint is applied in its most sensuous, lugubrious and drippy capacity, creating abstract paint scrapes that are rich in texture and surface interest. His approach is to allow the paint to flow until it fills the narrative spaces of a loosely figurative but, deeply narrative structure. Sasha Meret (born Romania) fashions resplendent metallic objects, sometimes twisting knots out of cutlery, other times generating witty figures out of founding mechanical or plumbing components. These objects not only embody abstraction in how they stand in space, they also reflect back to the viewer a skewed interpretation of our own image in their shiny surfaces.

Pat Hobaugh (born Indiana) perfectly renders toys - action figures and cartoon characters;  these figures themselves are enlisted as nodes in geometric forms and patterns. Their recognizability is a sly distraction—they are units, and their stories form a subtext rather than a primary narrative. Edward Holland (born in Philadelphia, PA) also activates geometry via paint on canvas. He riffs on pattern with refreshing flexibility: rectangles with crisscrossing axes are juxtaposed against irregular painterly forms. We expect to discern a sense of regularity in the pattern however, Holland shifts the placement of the form, subverting what we consider "pattern". The artists in this exhibition engage their mediums of paint and found objects in highly authentic frameworks and then manipulate those media to edify the viewer. 

Wade Bonds (Curator) is Director at Rafael Gallery in Midtown Manhattan. wbonds@gmail.com

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