ROSALIND TALLMADGE

Aphelion, 2019

mica flakes, Sumi ink, glitter, pumice + silver leaf on sequin fabric

72 x 60 inches

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Nebulous and spectral, the works in this exhibition are optically elusive, ever-shifting by Tallmadge’s shimmering blend of alchemy. Possessing an active and seducing luminosity, the paintings act as gilded receptors harnessing light and their environment. These are both outward and inward works. They take one in like floating celestial bodies of a boundless atmosphere, while offering a deep dose of introspective immersion, a meditative space where the complexities of the works are unveiled over time.

Behind the lure of the sparkle, Tallmadge renegotiates the bodily and imaginative implications of glitter and sequins, continuing her examination of the politics of beauty and surface. The artist begins each work on reversible sequin fabric, feminizing the surface while setting the topographies onto which she accumulates layers of decorative materials, carrying associations of the beauty industry, costume, and inherently, the feminine body. The work is then re-contextualized by the language of Formalism, particularly that of monochrome painting, historically and drastically a male-dominant field.

In this new body of work, Tallmadge pushes the materials to their most atmospheric effect. Like the celestial plane itself, the paintings are both eerie and sublime. While silver and gold leaf occupy a special place in the imagination, the works’ titles allude to phantoms, to the point in orbit that a planet or asteroid is closest or furthest from the sun, or a record of what occurs in the night, only touching upon the phenomenology of these subtle light-based surfaces.

The Supernal Plane // Rosalind Tallmadge + Rachel Mica Weiss, September 6 - October 13, 2019, Carvalho Park, Brooklyn, New York