J. Parker Valentine
15 Nov 2012 - 12 Jan 2013
J. PARKER VALENTINE
Who Made Who
15 November 201 - 12 January 2013
Annotations to the show
Which forms is the medium drawing able to gain? Which forms does it open up, and in which relation to the drawing can we see corpora, actions, spaces and our understanding (relation) to time? J. Parker Valentine develops thoughts about the medium of drawing in her artistic practice in relation to gravity and conceives drawing beyond its graphic gesture. She locates drawing out of the two-dimensional, and relates it to the body, to a timebased activity, or as a form of physical presence in space. These thoughts also become visible in her filmic and photographic images that she connects to drawing. Matter and image become one quality in her artistic work, wherein the process of drawing appears as a trace of thought, likewise as a performative action that creates its own language and physicalness. In doing so, J. Parker Valentine also goes back to forms she has already developed within her work, to constitute a reflexive progession of images.
For the first space at Galerie Max Mayer, J. Parker Valentine has developed three books, each of them assembled by three pages printed front and back. These pages are prints made after photographs of drawings that J. Parker Valentine took during the process of drawing. These prints also include new physical drawings or shaping on the surface of its paper that is herewith amplified by a physical layer respectively directed back to the characteristics of drawing. The books can be seen in reference to the display window: On the one hand, the format of the books is related to the measurements of the window ledge, that is covered completely by the books when they‘re unfolded – by the overturned pages the books even claim it‘s own physicalness. On the other hand, the intersection of the window allows the drawn pages to gain a visibility that includes a two-sided observation.
It is also a moment that develops in similar way by turning the pages in that each of the images subscribes structures to the image behind it by the light that shows through: the form of the work shifts into a time-based development.
In J. Parker Valentine‘s „silk pieces“ the connection between drawing and space is implemented by the textile as image carrier. The artist generates a progression of forms on the silk, that she subsequently cuts out, and mounts on the wall with space in between the cut-outs (or the whole piece of silk) and the wall as a body on its own. The fabric appears in a free-affixed mode against the wall, but it also creates a shifting but constant relationship to it by contacting physically or by drawing its shadows on the wall. The shaded, unseizable, nearly archaic technique of painting opens up its own structure and depth within the image body. It nearly appears as a mark or an abstract description (in shifting perspectives).
At Galerie Max Mayer, Valentine‘s „silk pieces“ are exhibited as couples. By choosing this way they bring up a discussion about positive and negative space that is opened up by its free expanding forms in different ways. The two forms in the first exhibition space are arranged right next to each other, making the empty space appear as a negative that puts both works into a relative strength. The two works in the hallway show a contrast to this:
They are shown vis-à-vis, separated by the space of the hallway, but also encompassing the space as a clamp. The architectural void becomes a connection between the textiles which are conceived in time by the movement of the observer.
The physical reference to space, architecture and the observer appears constitutive in the wall-piece in the last exhibition space. Architectural elements of the space, as well as drawings on paper create a concurrence that refers to those drawings Valentine applied directly on the wall. The whole drawing is covered by a lacy grey fabric: it marks the space of the image, as well as the physicality of the work itself. The fabric can be touched by the observer, wherein it is possible to trace the drawing‘s composition with one‘s finger, and likewise follows one’s gaze along the progression of the drawing‘s lines. An extension of the experience of being enclosed by the silk work in the hallway, here the observer traces the movement of the artist bodily, the observation occurs bound to the object itself. The interaction with space occurs differently within the single drawing that finds its position on two extending elements into the space: the drawing is placed as an object, as a temporal reference without being site-specific.J. Parker Valentine conceives drawing as a process, as an organic development that moves forward and backwards, but always connected to a gaze that merges out of the present. On the desk of the gallery, Valentine presents three portraits of aliens that are printed on an absorbent paper and retraced with red dyeing stones. The fictional appearance of the aliens –symbolically seen as a mirror that projects an image of the future drawn by the present – contrasts with the poetic-concrete lines drawn by the stones. A series of photography in turn shows the stones and its proceeding color on a textile as a description of location, as a physical reference which merges the fictive and the possible in one image.
Text: Christina Irrgang
The show is a collaboration between Galerie Max Mayer and Berlin based gallery Supportico Lopez. J. Parker Valentine has developed a specific exhibition concept for both galleries that she presents under the title „Who Made Who“, in Düsseldorf the show takes place from November 16th 2012 to January 12th 2013, in Berlin from November 23rd 2012 to January 5th 2013.
Who Made Who
15 November 201 - 12 January 2013
Annotations to the show
Which forms is the medium drawing able to gain? Which forms does it open up, and in which relation to the drawing can we see corpora, actions, spaces and our understanding (relation) to time? J. Parker Valentine develops thoughts about the medium of drawing in her artistic practice in relation to gravity and conceives drawing beyond its graphic gesture. She locates drawing out of the two-dimensional, and relates it to the body, to a timebased activity, or as a form of physical presence in space. These thoughts also become visible in her filmic and photographic images that she connects to drawing. Matter and image become one quality in her artistic work, wherein the process of drawing appears as a trace of thought, likewise as a performative action that creates its own language and physicalness. In doing so, J. Parker Valentine also goes back to forms she has already developed within her work, to constitute a reflexive progession of images.
For the first space at Galerie Max Mayer, J. Parker Valentine has developed three books, each of them assembled by three pages printed front and back. These pages are prints made after photographs of drawings that J. Parker Valentine took during the process of drawing. These prints also include new physical drawings or shaping on the surface of its paper that is herewith amplified by a physical layer respectively directed back to the characteristics of drawing. The books can be seen in reference to the display window: On the one hand, the format of the books is related to the measurements of the window ledge, that is covered completely by the books when they‘re unfolded – by the overturned pages the books even claim it‘s own physicalness. On the other hand, the intersection of the window allows the drawn pages to gain a visibility that includes a two-sided observation.
It is also a moment that develops in similar way by turning the pages in that each of the images subscribes structures to the image behind it by the light that shows through: the form of the work shifts into a time-based development.
In J. Parker Valentine‘s „silk pieces“ the connection between drawing and space is implemented by the textile as image carrier. The artist generates a progression of forms on the silk, that she subsequently cuts out, and mounts on the wall with space in between the cut-outs (or the whole piece of silk) and the wall as a body on its own. The fabric appears in a free-affixed mode against the wall, but it also creates a shifting but constant relationship to it by contacting physically or by drawing its shadows on the wall. The shaded, unseizable, nearly archaic technique of painting opens up its own structure and depth within the image body. It nearly appears as a mark or an abstract description (in shifting perspectives).
At Galerie Max Mayer, Valentine‘s „silk pieces“ are exhibited as couples. By choosing this way they bring up a discussion about positive and negative space that is opened up by its free expanding forms in different ways. The two forms in the first exhibition space are arranged right next to each other, making the empty space appear as a negative that puts both works into a relative strength. The two works in the hallway show a contrast to this:
They are shown vis-à-vis, separated by the space of the hallway, but also encompassing the space as a clamp. The architectural void becomes a connection between the textiles which are conceived in time by the movement of the observer.
The physical reference to space, architecture and the observer appears constitutive in the wall-piece in the last exhibition space. Architectural elements of the space, as well as drawings on paper create a concurrence that refers to those drawings Valentine applied directly on the wall. The whole drawing is covered by a lacy grey fabric: it marks the space of the image, as well as the physicality of the work itself. The fabric can be touched by the observer, wherein it is possible to trace the drawing‘s composition with one‘s finger, and likewise follows one’s gaze along the progression of the drawing‘s lines. An extension of the experience of being enclosed by the silk work in the hallway, here the observer traces the movement of the artist bodily, the observation occurs bound to the object itself. The interaction with space occurs differently within the single drawing that finds its position on two extending elements into the space: the drawing is placed as an object, as a temporal reference without being site-specific.J. Parker Valentine conceives drawing as a process, as an organic development that moves forward and backwards, but always connected to a gaze that merges out of the present. On the desk of the gallery, Valentine presents three portraits of aliens that are printed on an absorbent paper and retraced with red dyeing stones. The fictional appearance of the aliens –symbolically seen as a mirror that projects an image of the future drawn by the present – contrasts with the poetic-concrete lines drawn by the stones. A series of photography in turn shows the stones and its proceeding color on a textile as a description of location, as a physical reference which merges the fictive and the possible in one image.
Text: Christina Irrgang
The show is a collaboration between Galerie Max Mayer and Berlin based gallery Supportico Lopez. J. Parker Valentine has developed a specific exhibition concept for both galleries that she presents under the title „Who Made Who“, in Düsseldorf the show takes place from November 16th 2012 to January 12th 2013, in Berlin from November 23rd 2012 to January 5th 2013.