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Out of Waves

October 12, 2006- November 11, 2006

Sabine Friesicke

Robert Steele Gallery

511 W 25th St


SABINE FRIESICKE Out of Waves October 12 – November 11, 2006 In her previous body of abstract paintings in acrylic, Sabine Friesicke established painterly grids echoing the sides of the square canvases that playfully hinted at and denied the twodimensional nature of the pictorial supports. Those all-over paintings were produced by balancing one set of horizontal bands, painted across the width of the compositions, against another differently colored set of lines serving as intervals and -perceptually- as grounds for the darker bands. One hue was applied onto the other until an equilibrium between the lines of different color was established. The process continues with liquefied medium, of the same color and tone as the darker horizontal bands, running down the height of the canvas at narrow intervals, thereby creating irregular streaks locking each picture’s grid in place. In recent months, the artist has carried on this process of pictorial creation but now the tranquil horizontals have evolved into a wave like pattern creating a different mood.

From the start, Friesicke has aimed to see how much variety she can obtain in paintings of exact same size and format (64 x 64 inches) bearing similar patterns, through incremental changes in the density, width and direction of the lines, and modulations of the tone, color and opacity -or translucency- of the paint. The meditative quality of Friesicke’s work arises from the ritualistic repetition of more or less the same gestures and chance procedures day after day, and year after year. Her process-oriented pictures, conceived in series, are about time. Thus, they evoke passage.

A pulse was already brought about in the earlier pictures by layering the paint until the right color juxtapositions were obtained, by having the vertical streaks flow over the horizontal bands, thus achieving greater density where the lines overlap, and by having exposed squares and rectangles of ground glow through the grid. In the recent paintings, the wave-like bands running across the width of the canvases suggest both greater movement and a warped surface, which the streaks running on top of the bands partly correct. While the severe grid pattern in the previous pictures was occasionally reminiscent of a cropped view of International Style architecture, one row of windows on top of the other, the mellifluous, undulating patterns in the new works find occasional parallels in certain organic forms in Frank Gehry’s recent buildings, and in the squiggly lines of recent drawings and paintings by Sol Lewitt, another artist fascinated with systems allowing for seemingly endless repetition and incremental change.

One of the most striking characteristics of Friesicke’s paintings is their ability to glow. She achieves this by using silver and gold paints or –often- luminous lines framed by darker streaks and bands dividing the lines into small windows or tesserae. The finely nuanced, flickering light effects in this artist’s pictures are best experienced over time, more so it seems than a great many fine paintings by other artists that do not achieve any significantly greater energy and liveliness in response to shifting lighting situations. Metallic paint -like titanium cladding on buildings by Gehry - refract light, making the work shimmer; witness “White River”, painted with wide and closely spaced wavy bands and thin vertical streaks of silver over intervals of mother of pearl. Wide bands reappear in “Arrival”, now in a washed out orange color -crossed by a downpour of thin vertical streaks- over dark red lines, to different effect. In “Dark Energy”, on the other hand, the pattern emulates the quality of gauze. Friesicke achieves considerable variety through her sensitivity to light, color and the elasticity or tautness of lines, and her willingness to always allow chance to add the finishing touches to her paintings.

-- Michaël Amy

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Location map  Gallery Robert Steele Gallery Address 511 W 25th St, Suite 101 New York (Chelsea) NY, 10001 United States Phone 212-243-0165 Fax 212-243-1439 Hours Tue-Sat 11-6 Nearby: All 26 galleries at 511 W 25th St

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