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The
co-authored paintings of Ian Black and
James Mendes combine the public historical
language of Jackson Pollock's abstract
expressionism, with the personal language
of a non-specific (process directed) evolution
toward paintings that for the artists
provide new insights and maturity regarding
their vocation and intentions. such is
the central responsibility and purpose
of any serious painter.
Like
Pollock and other masters of the mid-twentieth
century New York School, Black and Mendes
have achieved a vocabulary of line, color
and form which is urgent, volitile, highly-colored
and large in scale. This is consistent
with the American tradition, a feeling
of unfinished raw expectancy for the next
moment's expressive gesture. These paintings
suggest any further development would
ultimately obliterate itself with too
many layers of information.
What distrinquishes their art from their
historical model, is that their paintings
have neutral areas of balance. The dynamics
of their painting have a central point
of interest and the orchestration of their
movement--drips and swirls--relying on
a repetition of such marks from a common
center of graviaty. This adaptation of
the abstract expressionist technique creates
decidedly horizontal (lanscape) or vertical
(totemic) references. For this reason
Black an Mendes utilize abstract expressionist
technique and psychology as an evolutionary
tool towards an independent language that
they share, that is both authentic, haptic
and kinesthetic in its present form. Their
clear intention is to illustrate the physical
and psychological condition of "orchestrated
chance". a philosophy that has as
its primary objective the creation of
unitenttional images that come from the
subterranean solu into the actiave kinetic
light of recorded actions. Theirs is the
primal objective--true to all genuine
artists-- of self-expression as revelation
of that which is beyound words. A conscious
attempt to express and experience an unconscious
epiphany--the lesson learned being incandescent
andone needing another day of painting
for explication.
Kevin
Costello
Art Critic, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
June,
2001
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