Teo Gonzalez at Eight Modern

Publication: Journal Santa Fe Section; Date: Oct 15, 2010; Section: Gallery Guide; Page: S8

Teo González returns, taking his work in another direction NEW BEGINNING Art Issues

MALIN WILSON-POWELL

For the Journal

Who knew the difference between drops and dots and spots would result in such fundamentallyaltered expressions? After taking a year off, Teo González’s dizzyingly energetic new paintingsannounce what for him and his viewers amounts to a seismic shift. He has described his changefrom marshalling minute drops of translucent, evaporated paint to applying dabs and loops ofsaturated paint as a “... new beginning. A door has opened, and I see an expanse of territory toexplore. It is just like when I started, only this time I’m not going on foot; I’ve got a bicycle.”

While González’s territory is still a rarified color field grid and the metaphorical bicycle he is ridingstill relies on a thousands of spots of color within a cellular border, the pace, dynamics, andmomentum of the work has definitely accelerated. For 18 years his paintings have had an amoeba-under-the-microscope quality, resulting in a smooth topography of only small incidents, like meltedBraille on a page. These new paintings have lumpy skins and the glossy glops and strings of thepainted cells sit in relief on top of satiny backgrounds.

It is interesting that the artist also describes his sea change as a shift to selfempowered agencyfrom attempts to control the climate of his paintings while feeling like a channel for automaticwriting. “After 18 years of attempting to control weather and physics ... I decided to eliminate thedrops and to paint them instead. ... it has transformed me from a medium ... to being the soleforce behind the creative process.”

There is a new giddiness on view in this work, like a kid riding without hands downhill. He hasmoved from designating his paintings by the sequence of making them and the number of dots inthe grid, to giving them colorful, evocative titles. “New King Ashurbanipal,” 44 by 44 inches, is themost raucous and optical composition in the exhibition. It is an almost neon red-orange field withred loops surrounding pink, red, and maroon minimounds of paint. It vibrates, loudly. If you look atit for any length of time there is an afterimage and a nimbus of green. The seventh-century oldKing Ashurbanipal was a master scribe who assembled the first systematically organized library ofmore than 30,000 clay cuneiform tablets. Could this painting be González celebrating thecalligraphic flourish and renewed vigor in developing his mark-making? It also appears to be theonly piece with an internal expansion of the scale of the grid. The smaller scale at the top billowsout toward the lower left corner.

The artist’s earlier work has a dependable pulse, a meter, and it requires noseto-surface scrutiny.

NEW BEGINNING http://epaper.abqjournal.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=Ol...

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Seeing it means focusing on pointillist cells made with micro movements. While close examinationof the newer, looser, wobblier spheres is still rewarding, this new work reverses the action. Insteadof needing to grasp the nuances of a miniature world with the eye, the color patterns move forwardtoward the viewer.

When do spots become directional? When they are in relationship versus being discrete separateentities. In the blues-on-black “Untitled #596,” free-floating little lozenges are tessellatedhorizontally while the dominant flow of ascending and descending, larger and smaller central blobscreate the affect of blue fronds that move vertically. Sinuous S-curves appear to both swarm upand swarm down at the same time, a titillating, gravity-defying sensory experience of bubblestreams rising and falling. Using a cobalt palette on a similar blue-black background, the squigglesof “Blue Rodeo” transmit color as if strings of variously sized spots are bioluminescent, segmented,deep-water sea creatures.

Four of the 11 works in the exhibition are “Rodeo” paintings in predominately white, blue, or redwith irregular spots that plot sideways actions. They look like overhead diagrams of squirmy,unsettling, truncated motions, as erratic as a bucking bronco. Yet, somehow, they maintaincoherence. For 18 years González’s drops were evenly spaced. In the Middle Ages, spots andstripes were graphic patterns that marked social outcasts, especially irregularly spaced spots thatwere associated with disease. They were the first visual manifestation of leprosy, syphilis, smallpox, bubonic plague and measles. Such spots could invade and spread virulently, and in alldirections. For both “Red Rodeo” and “Seagram (Study)” the artist surrounds and contains acentral, active field of irregular spots.

González was born in Spain and came to the U.S. in 1991, first to California and then to Brooklynin 1999, where he lives today. A student of abstract painter Jordi Teixdor, he arrived having already“found his way in art,” yet credits his move to this country with substantially accelerating his career.He has variously been associated with Minimalism, Color Field Painting, and Op Art. He has studiedthe work of Ad Reinhardt most closely and sees his current move as a “step away from minimalismand toward a sort of abstract expressionism.” It looks more like a move toward the textile-inspiredPattern and Decoration movement, an underrated American art movement erroneously dismissedas merely decorative.

Considering that most of the art in the world is abstract and González “feel(s) more connected toartwork that speaks to the widest possible audience, without the burden of language or culture”finding the dynamism of spots and dots in color would seem to be a territory without borders. In anera of atomic age particles, González is riding his new hand-painted bicycle into worldwide patternrecognition, from the earthy roots of spots in animal pelts to the pixilated screen. After his 18-yearconcentration on the refinements and subtleties of dissolving dots in a grid, there is much morepotential for action and many more horizons to discover in deep design motifs.

If you go

WHAT: “Teo González: New Work”

WHERE: Eight Modern, 231 Delgado St.

WHEN: Through Nov. 20.

CONTACT: 505-995-0231; info@eightmodern. net


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“New King Ashurbanipal (study)” is an acrylic polymer elmusion, pigment and acrylic on clay boardby Teo González.


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COURTESY EIGHT MODERN

“Untitled 594” is a 2010 acrylic polymer emulsion, pigment and acrylic on clay board by TeoGonzález.


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“Untitled 596” is a 2010 acrylic polymer emulsion, pigment and acrylic on clay board by TeoGonzález.


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“White Rodeo (study 1)” is a 2010 acrylic polymer emulsion, pigment and acrylic on clay board byTeo González.


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Teo Gonzalez at Eight Modern

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