Jasmine Wallace: In Between Spaces

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Jasmine Wallace, "Grinder Painting 44 (Pink Ruin)," 2019

acrylic on panel, 36" x 36"

Opening Nov 28 6-8 pm

In Between Spaces

Interested in spaces that show the passage of time and the accumulation of accretions on architecture, this new body of work will explore the idea of in-between spaces, in particular, spaces that have been abandoned, destroyed and transformed by urbanization. Often described as dead zones, heterotopias, or terrain vague these “other” spaces allow for the cultivation of contemporary ruins. Here, the built environment is sliding towards a more organic state in which the corroding, decomposing power of nature is producing a new form. Biomorphic aggregations begin to take overbuilt structures and this organic deterioration creates modern ruins that register as symbols of something lost but also as a site of possibility. In these spaces there exists a loss of control, buildings fall down into ruin, urban decay, graffiti and other public intervention occurs and within that, there exists a kind of freedom without any form of maintenance or control. In these locations, the natural environment and the built environment are allowed to freely interact revealing a wild, complex, and untamed environment.

The process heavy paintings become a space of suspension between something that was built and something that has been destroyed. Building up layers of paint over time and assaulting the picture plane by scratching, grinding and burning down the surface enables the work to reflect a crumbling infrastructure. The visual qualities of the work are simultaneously organic and architectonic; the intersection of these two extremes becomes a point of complexity. At first glance the works appear expressive and painterly in their abstraction, and it is at closer inspection that one can see the corroding forms of architectural and organic shapes. The painting becomes an excavation site – Like modern ruins that mark the passage of time, reflecting both a time past and a time present, the paintings portray something that was once present but through deconstruction and transformation has become a new form.