Nicola Tyson’s exhibition I am a teapot investigates the material qualities of paint while playfully exploring themes of the body. Her paintings are bold in size and color, and Tyson’s simplification of the human/animal form into a gestural language of mark-making feels just as confident as her choice of color palette and scale. Simultaneously, her brush strokes feel almost haphazard or coincidental, placing the figures in her paintings and us as the viewer in a precarious position, teetering between certainty and vulnerability. This in-between space that Tyson creates, and that we and her characters are left in, extends past mere preoccupations with the painted surface into a space where topics of bodily ambiguity unravel: Tyson approaches this topic with a genuine humor, making the images — although elaborate in their dualistic nature of being intentional yet incidental — easy to digest. In Their Dog, an image of a conjoined couple enveloping their dog sits atop a vibrant, red background. The couple’s facial features are simple yet effective: with two holes for eyes and a half-circle for the mouth, Tyson intentionally carves the rest of the figure’s form around these negative spaces to reveal the underpainting. Excluding the simplified yet distinct facial features, Tyson removes any indication of the figures’ genders. This interplay between clarity and ambiguity – persistence and restraint – sums up the complex quality of the show itself.
Your writing encapsulates Nicola Tyson's work wonderfully. I can tell you are familiar with talking about paintings in a constructive manner. One thing that didn’t really matter to me in work would be the hair being linked to gender because long hair for me is often representative of femininity but looking at the figures I would place them in the masculine category since the dog covers where that genitalia would be. But I also agree Tyson’s other work there is a distance from gender. Overall your writing is powerful, especially the first 3 sentences which are descriptive and captivating.
ReplyDeleteThe point you make of Tyson intentionally obscuring gender specific expression and preferring ambiguity really struck a chord with me and was something I had recognized and enjoyed about the works but not quite put words to. Upon revisiting my photos from the show I realized this is the case for almost all all of her figures except for a few where breasts or genitalia are vaguely suggested. I appreciated the emphasis you put on the thematic gray areas and paradoxes this show lives in -like recognition and confusion- as I feel that is what made the show so captivating.
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