exhibition

THE RUNNING ORDER

25.Jun.08 - 20.Jul.08
Wed-Sat 12-6 or by appointment

Private View, 25.Jun.08, 6-9

Vegas Gallery
64-66 Redchurch Street
London E2 7DP
07726750762 / 02077294819
hello@vegasgallery.co.uk
www.vegasgallery.co.uk
Tube Liverpool Street, Old Street, Aldgate East, Shoreditch / Hoxton

Text by Nicholas Scheidt

'The French painter Géraldine Gliubislavich (1978) attended the Arts décoratifs in Strasbourg and Central St Martin’s, Byam Shaw in London. Gliubislavich’s exhibition follows her 2007 debut at Vegas Gallery, The Afterworld. The works in her first solo show were often inspired by photographs, which the artist then contaminated with paint, creating a pictorial dimension to be found somewhere between reality and the imagination.

In her second solo show, The Running Order, Gliubislavich displays work in a more classical format. The show is comprised of paintings in a particular sequence or « running order », an order which alludes both at the systemic nature of their production process and at their somewhat chaotic and schizophrenic nature. This order occurs through mutations and dislocations both in the process running from photograph to finished painting and in the relationships between the paintings in the exhibition space.

Gliubislavich approaches paint from a conceptual standpoint. Her creative process is built around a critical appraisal of the history and meaning of painting itself. It also attempts to obtain a certain degree of openness whilst preserving the sensuality of the medium paint.

Gliubislavich collects and uses as the starting point for her paintings photographs which often depict people arranged, and participating, in group events such as role-playing games, battles, crowds, concerts, processions, as well as art by other contemporary artists. The paintings carry traces of the photographs from which they originate, mutating them into vaporous and open-ended surfaces that captivate and trick the eye.

Despite the dark mood and the low definition of the depicted scenes, Gliubislavich’s play with texture, luminosity and compositional strategies lend her works a disturbingly engaging energy.

For the artist, the possibilities of painting have to be kept open. In opposition to the tyranny of style, she allows different manners to coexist within her work. Eventually, what remains at stake are the interactions between paintingswhich enrich each other mutually.