Candy Power: Wil Murray "Fated Fêted Fatted Fetid" at Zeke's Gallery

Another very cool exhibit just seen today:
you got until the end of November (it's been
extended) to cath this demarking installation
of paintings by Wil Murray at Zeke's Gallery.


I say "cool" but in fact I really do mean standout.


I've seen a couple of the big shows recently
announcing the resurgence of abstraction painting
among the new generation, and Wil Murray's art could
be put next to these young heroes any day.

How can I describe it...

Franz Ackerman on acid (ie. literally:
a melted down Franz Ackerman), poured over
a Gary Hume.



A retro psychedelic version of a
François Lacasse, replacing geo-biologic
textures with the irrealism of
bubblegum pop. Almost but not quite
a mapping system made with melted candies.

You could think of the violent shapes and colours of
recent Rosenquist, Elizabeth Murray, Kenny Scharf,
and you're not there yet. This stuff is categorically
screaming. It's goa. It's vynil kitsch. It's an artistic
disorder, something that wasn't supposed to happen:
an abstract version of kawaii art. I have no idea.




The titles of the works seem
to be extracted from pop songs ("Baby I Want To Buy
You A Cadillac", "You're Made From Pennies And Ashtrays",
"Ride My Seesaw", "Guess That's Called A Good Thing Lost")
or totally embracing references to kitsch ("Jean Talon, Pantalon", "Pink As A Rooster's Dink") or psychedelism ("Sometimes Use The Sun As A Tambourine",
"Run Through Candy Floss Field Forever").


The technique of using polyutherane mousse
to create strong 3d reliefs usually serve as the
base upon which is poured a variety of
wild fluorescent colours that are fixed into
adjointed patterns of varied design (marble, stripes,
splattings, gestural ellipses, etc..). The result
would look like eruptions or oozing canals of
the formatting geographies of a comic
book universe if it wasn't for those
patched-in fragments of designs borrowed
from a 60's "a-gogo" aesthetic.

The toyish appearance and textures
of Murray's paint sounds like he's
at the carrefour of a few art tendencies:
the coulourfield use of industrial products
that erase human touch, the expressionism
of a style that reasserts its place with the
early gestural abstract painters, and a
pop-eyed aesthetic that ambiguously pull
at equal distance between op art and pop art
(pop because of the comic book spectrum of colours).


It's a wonder that someone could manage
to digest all of this, but that is what it is:
an art digestive of all these celebrated tendencies
from the 60's. A synthetic art that performs
a flamboyant synthesis of the achievements
in painting during that era. For now, a little bit
overwhelming, but don't forget this is the first show
from this artist.



Definitely an artist to follow.



Cheers,

Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com




PS: Rumours say that René Blouin might take him on his roaster.
It could be his best decision since Nicolas Baier. Time will tell.