If painting is what John Russell called a “vegetable construct that changes in time,” there’s no reason a painter can’t accelerate the progress. Before Plank Lean Painting left Andrew Dadson‘s studio in Vancouver B.C., he retracted it.
Andrew Dadson Plank Lean Painting #2, 2010.
Oil on canvas.
60 x 60 x 10 inches
Plank Lean Painting, detail
What symphonies of old-time push and pull are buried underneath the black? Leftover colors gather at the painting’s edge like clues at a crime scene. And this is the truth about painting. Dadson’s attempt to kill it gave it license to rise again in another form, from bloom to blight, channeling Rothko.
Voter’s Ink, 2008
Iraqi voter ink on canvas
framed with UV Plex
42 x 32 inches (reversible vertically)
Making a painting from Iraqi voter ink embraces accelerated change. The piece will continue to develop in the light, losing purple and gaining gold, its specifics lost in an atmosphere over which the artist has no control. For someone who is not primarily a painter, his contributions to a medium that only momentarily has his attention are extraordinary.
Through June 26 at Lawrimore Project. Jessica Powers on Dadson here.
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