James Gortner
Gallery Affiliations: Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery, Lyons Wier Gallery
Region: Northeast
In this body of work, I use reclaimed industrial paint to set,
dry, and reverse found paint from an existing surface onto
stretched linen. I employed this technique when I was recently
forced to leave my studio. I decided to take the space with me.
I reversed onto my canvas the topmost drywall, flooring paint,
and wood surfaces, which included my own spilled paint marks,
footprints, loose brush bristles, staples, bits of cut canvases,
dust, overspray, and trace gouges in the floor and walls where
earlier I had knifed through paintings. In doing this, I preserve
a history of my artistic enterprise in the space, but also rip away
the remnants of my efforts. The gesture and the resulting art
could be seen as at once defiant and redemptive, destructive
and transformative.