B U I L D I N G U P T O A P O I N T by Mary Corrigal

Transcription

1 GALIA GLUCKMAN

2 B U I L D I N G U P T O A P O I N T by Mary Corrigal Ossification. This word is almost never used in relation to art but presents an interesting prism through which to consider the works in Galia Gluckman s exhibition Metas (Latin for boundaries). The scale of the works and the intricate textural surfaces are all consuming, however, your eye is almost always drawn to the point or points where Galia s distinctive strips are more densely layered forming sort of clusters or climax points. Osssification, which in simple scientific or medical parlance refers to the slow build-up of cells in the process of bone formation, seems all the more fitting when you are aware that her unique visual vocabulary is labour intensive. As such not only do the compositions pivot on points of accumulation, but so too does her technique. The creation of the long, narrow painted strips that form her medium are time consuming to generate and rely on a set format and exacting precision. After arriving at a colour palette for each work, typically a combination of complementary shades, each strip is generated via a process of layering, joining and then careful mechanical splicing that took Gluckman years to perfect. The essence of her practice therefore depends on creating a pattern, which is then employed in another form of patternmaking. The artwork s final composition is less calculated or premeditated. The underlying pattern provides the visual structure, but the concluding artwork is subject to her moods, subconscious inclinations and creative compulsions. Interestingly, however, recurring patterns, compositions occur, affirming the way in which human behavior and creation itself relies on established pathways. Broader patterns are generated through a directional flow. Forms twist around a central axis or in the instance of Principium, lean towards or gravitate towards one like iron filings around a magnet. This sense of flow and or a gravitational pull as an ordering sort of force is an intriguing leitmotif in Gluckman s work. What kind of force keeps a body of lines suspended in Nunc? This underlying mystery pervades through her art, generating a necessary tension. This may be the case with much abstract art, however, as Gluckman s vocabulary discretely suggests familiar forms, there is a lingering sense that a literal meaning is within grasp. There is enough surface definition and visual complexity in her art to sustain interest above and beyond any literal allusions. Her art exists as pure form, while alluding to the pure creation of form. This is reflected in the Latin titles, which evoke an ancient order, a grounding knowledge system underlying our perception of reality, or scientific pursuits. The definition of ossification in relation to trauma or injury of bones provides a darker interpretive lens. From this view the points of ossification mark trauma and are a necessary or natural palliative towards recovery. From this perspective, Gluckman s works could operate as a metaphor for the mapping of historical narratives, the striated and layered lines standing in for sociopolitical conditions that reach a climax, by pulling a collective consciousness towards and around these points of oscillation, before collapsing back into a another state, though retaining memory, through scarring (denoted via a layer of lines) of what came before. The process of ossification in a scientific realm might not be subject to whim or even human intervention, however, as it relates to the creation of the structure of a body it serves as a powerful metaphor for her art. The cellular aesthetic that defines Gluckman s language is also given life through a repetitive process, relying on the accumulation of uniform units. Not that Gluckman s artworks necessarily isolate a moment of creation; as the vertical lines appear to continue beyond the confines of the canvas she establishes her expression as a small detail of a much larger, expansive world or phenomenon. Aerial mapping of the land comes to mind - particularly in works such as Principium and Vita, which read as views of bucolic or urban settings. In the title and work Homage to the City, Gluckman overtly draws attention to the relationship between her compositions and urban environments, though this work could read as a study of mirrored skyscrapers or rough shantytowns where exteriors are formed from disparate disused materials. So while the uniformity of texture and colour palettes might inform the production of her works, its richness lies in the juxtaposition of these differing qualities. Her works are less about the friction between different forms and more about the knitting together and flow that defines not only the creation of a city, or a rural locale but indeed other organic or corporeal formations. In this context the ossifying tendency is the result of a deviation from the pattern or twist in it that causes an abnormal form calcification. This historical narrativising reading offers an avenue into the traumas underpinning her South African Jewish and female identities, suggesting the aesthetic could have a personal pay-off for the artist. The distance from which these histories are portrayed or exist in her practice offer her (and by proxy us her viewers) a comfortable position from which to understand the twisted patterns of racial, religious or gender prejudice and the way in which they are naturally corrected through a repetition of new ideological patterns that slowly unwrite and invalidate or what has come before as they direct a new flow in consciousness. It s a comforting thought given the times in which we live, where the protest against forms of racial, religious and gender biases are being met with a hard line of resistance from the old order. In her art, Gluckman allows the patterns to take their natural path knowing that balance and restoration can be restored aesthetically, compositionally. It s as if she has harnessed an ancient feminine energy that is so deeply rooted in the core dynamic of creation it naturally pushes the flow in the right direction, even if that means folding in on itself, before releasing and atomizing into smaller forms, pushing the flow in new directions. Corrigall is a Cape Town based art consultant, writer and researcher, recovering from a form of ossification around her right ankle. As such it is as if through her abstract compositions that she drills down into the essence of life. Creation itself is represented as the clustering, repetition and flow of cells and the intertwining of disparate elements.

3 Galia Gluckman Lito (Calm), 2017 Acrylic paint, pigment ink and collage on cotton paper 100h x 100w cm A$ 5,200.00

4 Galia Gluckman Pas De Mots (No Words), 2017 Acrylic paint, pigment ink and collage on cotton paper 148h x 90w cm A$ 7,200.00

5 Galia Gluckman Quia (Seeing), 2017 Acrylic paint, pigment ink and collage on cotton paper 140h x 106w cm A$ 7,800.00

6 MCONTEMP.COM +61 (2) OCEAN ST WOOLLAHRA SYDNEY, NSW GALIA GLUCKMAN CV SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2018 CIRCA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa ora(edge), CIRCA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2014 Pixels, Artist House, Tel Aviv, Israel 2013 New Works Galia Gluckman, The Jewish Museum, Cape Town, South Africa 2009 Gallery 25 Ltd Booth, International Artexpo, New York, USA TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2015 Galia Gluckman and Penelope Stutterheime, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2018 WINTER Exhibition (February), Everard Read London, London, United Kingdom Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Everard Read/CIRCA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2017 Cubicle Series, CIRCA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa Abstract Show, CIRCA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa Abstract Show, Everard Read Gallery, London, United Kingdom Cape Town Art Fair, CTICC, Everard Read/CIRCA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa FNB Joburg Art Fair, Everard Read/CIRCA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa 2016 Cape Town Art Fair, CTICC, Cape Town, South Africa (EVERARD READ/CIRCA Booth B7) Summer Exhibition, Circa Gallery London, United Kingdom Winter Collection, Everard Read Cape Town, South Africa Winter Show, Circa, Johannesburg, South Africa Space Between, Jewish Museum, Cape Town, South Africa 2015 Resonance & Wonder, Jewish Museum, Cape Town, South Africa Homage, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa The Winter Exhibition, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa Empire, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa Nando s Broken Monsters Charity Art Exhibition, Cape Town, South Africa 2014 Summer Season Part I, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa Seeking Eden, Casa Labia Gallery, Casa Labia Muizenberg, South Africa Winter, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town Salon 91 Booth, CAPE TOWN ART FAIR, Cape Town, South Africa Epidermis, curated by Gilat Nadivi and Vera Pilpoul, Florentin 45, Tel Aviv, Israel Artlines Gallery, curated by Nicki Westcott, Kleinmond, Overberg, South Africa 2013 Salon 91 Booth, CAPE TOWN ART FAIR, Cape Town, South Africa I d rather be swimming, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa The Editions Show, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa Shining Girls, curated by Jackie Lang, Cape Town, South Africa Artlines Gallery, curated by Nicki Westcott, Kleinmond, Overberg, South Africa 2012 Impression : Sunset, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa Artlines Gallery, curated by Nicki Westcott, Kleinmond, Overberg, South Africa Rock Girl Ball Project, curated by Lauren Shantall, Freeworld Design Centre, Cape Town, South Africa 2010 Diana Levine Fine Art Booth, Design Boston, Boston, USA Group Show- Galerie Mistinguette Fine Art, Great Neck, New York, USA 2009 Group Show- Galerie Mistinguette Fine Art, Great Neck, New York, USA 2008 Manhattan Arts Project, Manhattan, New York, USA ART SOURCE, Nevada City, California, USA 2007 Group Show- Organization of Independent Artists, Manhattan, New York, USA Hello Chelsea!, PS 35 Gallery, Chelsea, Manhattan, New York, USA 2006 Group Show- Women s Studio Centre, Manhattan, New York, USA

7 SELECTED COLLECTIONS Hilton Hotel Group, USA M & C SAATCHI ABEL Collection, South Africa. Rupert Collection, South Africa Roddick Collection, UK Spier,Spier Arts Trust/ Yellowwoods Art, South Africa Peoples Collection, presidential residence in Cape Town, South Africa Further Private collections in Australia, Dubai, Israel, South Africa, Spain, United Kingdom and USA. AWARDS AND COMMISSIONS 2010 New York Public Artwork- commissioned by Great Neck, New York Major Jean Celender Winner of Global Green Artist Challenge, International ArtExpo, New York, USA. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS ART BUSINESS NEWS, USA - May 2009 ART BUSINESS NEWS, USA - March 2009 ART BUSINESS NEWS, USA - January 2009 ART SOUTH AFRICA, October 2013, online feature ARGUS, WEEKEND EDITION, South Africa, feature CASAVIVA, Greece, Art Issue 2010 ELLE DECORATION, South Africa HOUSE & GARDEN, Conde Nast, South Africa June 2014 feature HOUSE AND LEISURE, Conde Nast, South Africa South Africa GOOD TASTE, South Africa, October Cover & feature INTERIOR DESIGN, USA, Best of the Year, December 2009 INTERIOR DESIGN, USA, Making art - August 2009 O- THE OPRAH MAGAZINE, South Africa, Beautiful things,, November feature PRIVATE EDITION, South Africa, Sheer Artistry issue, July feature THE NEW AGE, South Africa, Arts & Culture Issue, February feature THE GOOD WEEKEND, South Africa, February feature VISI, South Africa, Fine Art Issue, May feature WOMAN & HOME, South Africa, July feature

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