Melissa Gordon
03 Sep - 03 Oct 2009
MELISSA GORDON
'Two-dimensional Men'
preview wednesday 2 september, 6 ‒ 8pm
3 september ‒ 3 october 2009
ANCIENT & MODERN presents new paintings and drawings by Melissa Gordon.
Two-Dimensional Men is Melissa Gordon’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. Her installation arises from reference points dealing with populist images and socio-historical documents. Its title is a take on Herbert Marcuse’s publication ‘One-Dimensional Man’ (1964) which examines the fundamental relationships in post-war society between capitalism, bureaucracy and communism, particularly with regards to increasing forms of social repression and excessively material values.
Gordon seeks not simply to present found images or source material, but to re-present, recontextualize and create new angles and critiques regarding the cultural circulation and function of objects and ideas over time.
In a series of new paintings, magnified details of Norman Rockwell illustrations are presented alongside similarly enlarged, familiar textile patterns. Rockwell was an American illustrator particularly best known for his covers of the Saturday Evening Post, portraying and perpetuating a wholesome American vernacular of Post-War middle-class values about work, family, and leisure.
Extracted from their original context and blown-up so that they dissolve into the rosetta pattern of the CMYK colour-printing matrix, the Rockwell details become difficult to decipher as images, although not entirely unidentifiable as references. The bracketed titles of the works – (After ‘The Fugitive’) and (After ‘The Flirt’) – hint at the individual piece each may hold in a larger puzzle.
The ‘fabric’ paintings on coarse linen of pinstripe, houndstooth and plaid are strong traditional identifiers of particular types of individuals and characters: a banker, an intellectual, a farmer. Gordon is particularly interested in the socio-cultural construction of character and gender
'Two-dimensional Men'
preview wednesday 2 september, 6 ‒ 8pm
3 september ‒ 3 october 2009
ANCIENT & MODERN presents new paintings and drawings by Melissa Gordon.
Two-Dimensional Men is Melissa Gordon’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. Her installation arises from reference points dealing with populist images and socio-historical documents. Its title is a take on Herbert Marcuse’s publication ‘One-Dimensional Man’ (1964) which examines the fundamental relationships in post-war society between capitalism, bureaucracy and communism, particularly with regards to increasing forms of social repression and excessively material values.
Gordon seeks not simply to present found images or source material, but to re-present, recontextualize and create new angles and critiques regarding the cultural circulation and function of objects and ideas over time.
In a series of new paintings, magnified details of Norman Rockwell illustrations are presented alongside similarly enlarged, familiar textile patterns. Rockwell was an American illustrator particularly best known for his covers of the Saturday Evening Post, portraying and perpetuating a wholesome American vernacular of Post-War middle-class values about work, family, and leisure.
Extracted from their original context and blown-up so that they dissolve into the rosetta pattern of the CMYK colour-printing matrix, the Rockwell details become difficult to decipher as images, although not entirely unidentifiable as references. The bracketed titles of the works – (After ‘The Fugitive’) and (After ‘The Flirt’) – hint at the individual piece each may hold in a larger puzzle.
The ‘fabric’ paintings on coarse linen of pinstripe, houndstooth and plaid are strong traditional identifiers of particular types of individuals and characters: a banker, an intellectual, a farmer. Gordon is particularly interested in the socio-cultural construction of character and gender