Ashes.
A Series of Undeveloped Mythologies
by Simran Gleason
"Ashes" exhibited in 1997 in the
Coastal Arts League Museum
at Gallery 92 West in Half Moon Bay, California.
This page includes a small sampling of pieces from the show.
(Click on the images for larger versions)
Artist's Statement:
"Ashes" is a series of undeveloped mythologies beginning with a cycle of
dissolution and response. Descent into ashes: a chrysalis state where
annealing occurs below the surface of awareness. The swirl of emotion,
transformation and re-emergence into the body. Stories of entering
into that filigreed network of fiber and bone, muscle and
membrane. Isolation and relation: situated awareness.
I find myself continually exploring questions of the embodiment of
consciousness. I work in a figurative idiom for the richness of
association that the figure evokes because of the closeness of our own
bodies -- and the distance of others. Using a technique of aleatory
figuration, I move paint around with paper towels, fingers, palette
knives, and calligraphic brushstrokes until figures begin to
appear. More paint moves and the figures coalesce or dissolve,
interact and turn away. Occasionally I am allowed glimpses of the
stories from these undeveloped mythologies.
About the Artist
Simran Gleason paints in the tenuous space between abstraction
and figuration, applying a range of mediums -- acrylic, sand, tar
emulsion, pixels -- to whatever surface he can get his hands on --
paper, canvas, upholstery fabric, digital images. He has been showing
his work in the Bay Area in solo and group shows for the past ten
years, and has been exhibiting on the World Wide Web since 1994
(www.art.net/~simran). Although he aspires to paint on large
environmental sonic sculpture, his current show at the Coastal Arts
League Museum in Half Moon Bay is a series of small
abstract-figurative works in acrylic on paper.
Simran Gleason