T. J. BATESON - 'Reflections on Black'
30th Nov – 18th Dec 201
The current group of shows at the gallery reflects a policy of partly
curated group show, partly individually rented rooms. It is a practicality for
smaller spaces these days and Tacit have proved adept at the balance. The
combination of Christine Gibbs, Jane Sawyer and Irene Wellm in the main rooms
is particularly well judged in their shared sombre tones. Animal themes to
Gibbs at the front and Wellm at the back also provide a satisfying balance and
all are recommended but it is the selection of austere abstractions by T. J.
Bateson, titled Reflections on Black in
the third room that finally claimed this reviewer’s attention. While perfectly
in tune with the overall tone, the work takes up formal themes usually
identified with the sixties and seventies and surprisingly manages to find
something new and expressive there.
Drill Wire Polyhedron II (2016) 160 X 190 cm acrylic/canvas
The paintings match a delicate, curved matrix against closely toned
fields of drips or spatters in layers, at once suggesting discreet measurement
or calculation and its dissolution or submersion. The effect is a little like
an arm wrestle between a Sol LeWitt ‘Arc’ drawing and the dark, cascading
fields of someone like New York painter, Pat Steir. There has been an revival of interest
in Minimalism by a younger generation in recent years so it was not entirely
surprising to find this territory revisited, but Bateson turns out to be not so
much a recent art school graduate (although he completed an M.F.A. at the RMIT this
year) as a mid-career artist with a long commitment to gestural abstraction,
adjusting his practice due to a slow and difficult treatment of cancer. Tim has lacked the strength to work other than
through fairly limited, mechanical tasks and so found himself adopting stripes
and grids for structures and devising mechanical means to distribute splatters
and drips, effectively automating much of his process. The two techniques are
pursued separately in some works; in the current show a series of large
engravings demonstrates the linear option.
Iteration Black Mauve #2 (2016) 58 X 54 cm dry point
What is quickly clear on scrutiny is that Bateson shares none of
LeWitt’s concern with precision or an exhaustive set of arcs and points for a
given quadrilateral. Consequently, the works carry none of the optical confusion,
(or opticality as it used to be
termed) generated by the intense density of lines in a LeWitt. The curves for
Bateson are really a contrasting means of declaring gesture: gesture of an
intensely regimented kind, certainly, but gesture essentially in contrast with
the indeterminate fields of drips and spatters. One literally carves out a path,
the other a terrain and in places they interact or exchange prominence. One exemplifies
control, the other its lack. In the engravings, the grounds are largely the
product of the printing process, never an even or uniform white. In the
paintings the fields are not restricted to a background but offer an all-over distribution
as an alternative gesture, obscuring some curves, highlighting others,
attaining their own vertical characteristic through the template of curves. It
is an acute duality that finds ready parallels for our plans, our shifting
understanding and efforts to reconcile ourselves to accident, chance and the
unexpected. The feeling accordingly, is one of tentativeness and patience and
in as much as the works are literally dark, they metaphorically express a dim
resignation or determination.
But if the curves are not entirely a system, in LeWitt’s terms, how are
they derived or on what are they based? This is not immediately clear from the
works, and initially my impression was of a close-up of traditional
cross-hatching from a drawing or print perhaps, making the works a very shrewd
exercise in Post Modernism, abstraction on a very concrete level. But this is
not quite the case either. In conversation with the artist I learned that they
are based on details of 3-D digital modelling armatures or ‘wire-frames’ encountered
in his work teaching the software programme Lightwave at secondary schools and
which he also uses for video compositing. This accounts for the distinctly volumetric
nature of the curves in the engravings and brings with it unavoidable
associations of cages and consequently entrapment. Again it is not hard to find
an expressive register for such concerns.
Iteration Dark Black #1 (2016) 58 X 54 cm dry point
These are much less apparent in the paintings, where sheer scale confers upon the curves greater density, delicacy and uniformity. We sense not so much a curved framework to a plane as an immense sweep or swirl, not quite controlled nor truly chaotic, but unmistakably dynamic. This is as close to ‘opticality’ as Bateson gets. The contrast with a prime Minimalist grid artist like Agnes Martin could not be greater or more instructive. Where Martin’s faint, tremulous lines suggest meditation and tranquillity, the grids of Bateson are restless, fugitive things
Drill Wire Polyhedron III (2016) 160 X 190 cm acrylic/canvas
Linear Bronze Field (2016) 160 X 190 cm acrylic/canvas
Just as 3-D modelling provides Bateson with a framework, his experience
there also disposes him toward remote or automated pictorial processes, quite
apart from his unfortunate affliction. Devising a simple centrifuge on the end
of a power drill delivered the fields of spatters in suitable counterpoint to his
grids. The technique suggests gesture, at least as irregular application of
pigment, and this broadening of the term is significant. But the level of
detail and evenness of distribution required, are unlikely to have been
provided by more traditional applications in any case, much less the
flexibility of layers. The work is thus committed to a system ultimately driven
by digital practice. Here we begin to glimpse why the work is different, how
changes in technology can have unforeseen implications for old issues like
Minimalism.
Since the work forgoes greater symmetry in its choice of curves or
system (unlike a LeWitt) it no longer strictly belongs to Minimalism’s Systems
project but rather to its lyrical wing, once the domain of the likes of Jules
Olitski and Morris Louis and devoted to radical experiment in materials and
technique, often termed ‘Process’ (although the term has come to suggest a
duration or even performance which is misleading). For the old-school
Minimalist, defining a colour or shape as pictorial elements depends upon the
materials and technique used and this process is suitably demonstrated by novel
concoctions of pigment, application and support. Fields here are often subtle
variations on a monochrome (which of course equally maintains multiple
symmetries) or as stripes or circles, their integrity or definition variously
compromised or imperfect by process. While Systems Minimalism eventually
drifted into Pattern and Decoration painting (an interesting step, we need not
go into here), Process either looked to greater scale in its equation and
embraced architecture, even civic planning at some level, or its supports
simply turned more sculptural (resulting in painted sculpture). The movement as
a whole tended to disperse there.
Subsequent abstraction occasionally still looks to randomised
distribution of pigment in fields, notably in the abstract work of Gerhard Richter,
where pigment is applied by giant custom-made squeegees. As mentioned, the work
of Pat Steir from the nineties onward adopts extremely dilute pigment in the
service of gravity and like Bateson, is inclined to dark, ominous tones. More
recently, Wade Guyton adapts small inkjet printers, to misprint from random or test files
directly onto canvas, in stripes and fields. Here too we see how Minimalist
issues arise quite differently in the digital world. But all this is simply to
indicate a broad (and international) context for Bateson. The difficulty is
that with the dissipation of Minimalism in the mid seventies, abstraction fails
to attract compelling advocates among critics. Other projects promise more. Post
Minimalist abstraction perseveres obviously, but a formalist analysis has
largely been replaced with sociological agendas and ultimately fails to address
the mechanisms of meaning to abstraction. While attributing meanings to the
work, such criticism cannot finally say how
they arise pictorially. The recent market trend, ‘Zombie Abstraction’, as it is
pejoratively termed, simply celebrates this critical vacuum, appeals to
nostalgia or advances a cynical and shallow grasp of the issues. Bateson, most
assuredly, is not a zombie. He is the real deal, but as yet awaits proper
recognition.
Iteration Study 1 (2016) 58 X 54 cm dry point
Finally, mention must be made of his larger show from earlier in the
year at Tacit, Iteration II (24th
August – 11th September) occupying four rooms. Its page on the Tacit site offers a
better idea of the scope and scale of his project. For the moment he remains
reluctant to introduce colour since the play between line and tone is so
integral or complete in itself that colour looms as merely superfluous. Another
consideration is the number of axes or layers to a grid. Interestingly, the example at the
top of the exhibition page, using a much greater density and
effectively reducing the spattered field to a surround or background, has since
been painted over, indeed the page substantially revised.
Drill (2016) 160 X 90 cm acrylic/canvas (now destroyed)
Presumably, the balance between grid and field presents
limitations in that direction. On the other hand, the fields by themselves
particularly in extended form run the risk of becoming formulaic or decorative
and this is a matter of technique (or process) that also suggests constraints
and conversely, possibilities. The artist has unquestionably staked out a
territory for himself within these and one senses there are ample parameters
for him to consolidate both a very personal expression as well as a very
Minimalist style of painting.
Grey Wire Polyhedron (2016) 160 X 190 cm acrylic/canvas
All images courtesy of the artist and Tacit
Contemporary Fine Art.
My gratitude to both for assistance in
preparing this review.
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