Dark, Shiny
With their palette of black and murky shades of green-grey, titles like Rain my rage on the opposite shore, and a catalogue essay that speaks of transcendence and Titian, I am not sure that I am meant to find the latest abstractions by Noël Skrzypczak so funny.
The series of works shown at the new Melbourne gallery Neon Parc extend Skrzypczak’s previous experiments with gestural drips of paint. Unlike her grandiose wall works (discussed in my article in Eyeline #56, and recently featured in the group exhibition ‘Uncanny Nature’ at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art) this exhibition features ten smaller easel sized works.
Skrzypczak continues to demonstrate exceptional control over her perilous palette: black and grey curdle with fluorescent yellow, buttery cream, bottle green, teal and eau de nil, and the more over-the-top pictures entangle rumpus room hues of mushroom and lavender. Muted washy backgrounds, with the occasional suggestion of underpainting, provide an unobtrusive foil for the gaudy applied arrangements. The overall effect is a flamboyant kind of Gothick very much in the spirit of Pollock—at once gaudy and gloomy—with grandiose literary titles to match.
But all is not what it seems. Skrzypczak has made what are, in effect, convincing simulations of abstract paintings. While they initially appear to be made from paint flung, poured, dripped and smeared on to the canvas in a flurry of emotional intensity, closer inspection reveals that they are, for the most part, a kind of avant garde decoupage. As with previous works, Skrzypczak makes and manipulates her abstract dribbles on Perspex, peeling the skins of fast-drying acrylic and attaching them to the support.
Right down to the corners of the canvas where