Diaz Contemporary is pleased to present Robert Linsley’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, a survey of his work from 1998-2005.
All of the canvases in Linsley’s show are 72x60 inches, a scale derived from the artist’s own body. Linsley's works are created by spilling commercial enamel on canvas and then tipping the surface in various directions to make the island shapes.
By determining the motion and consistency of the paint, Linsley controls the form of the islands and the jaggedness of their outlines. While his technique gives him control over all aspects of the image—number of colours and shapes, composition, quality of the surface—the final result is unpredictable and emerges from the working process itself. In this way, the work presents a new kind of balance between freedom and control.
Some of Linsley’s islands are made with a single pour, others are composite. The individual pour is analogous to a single brush stroke. The forms appear to be released from gravity so that they can rise and turn in any spatial direction, breaking away from the two-dimensional surface of the canvas.
Linsley’s titles are carefully thought-out and contain more than one level of meaning. As the artist reveals: “The works set up a chain of meanings: a shape stands for an island, an island can stand for something else, such as a figure or a symbolic place, and then the title opens up even more possible references.”
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