George Peck
Florence Lynch Gallery,
531-539 West 25th Street, Ground Floor,
New York NY 10001 212-924-3290
September 4 to October
4, 2003
By JOE FYFE
George Peck "The
Escapist" - In Color 2003
installation shot, courtesy Florence Lynch Gallery, New York
For the past several years, George Peck has been painting on large plastic
drop cloths, the kind bought in a hardware store or a from a commercial
paint supplier. The paintings consist of two layers, with the painting
activity confined to the lower middle areas of each sheet. The see-through
plastic shifts the focus from close to distant and one must sidle up,
feeling almost sandwiched between the plastic, in order to see the work.
The slightly off, milky or dim colors which at first seem to comprise
a generalized welter of painting activity becomes a diverse range of
abstract marks, collaged nylon scrim and delicately drawn imagery. There
is a remarkable clarity amid the disparate mediums and applications
in this gritty, uncompromising show.
Another important artistic
decision of Peck's seems to be an anti-dramatic one. Peck has partitioned
the gallery with these tall painted sheets, so that no sweeping first
impression is available upon entering. We have to take the exhibition
in bites. There is enough light to see the work but not so much as to
dazzle the viewer. The gallery walls are also covered in the same plastic
used in the paintings. In doing so, the framing effect that white gallery
walls would have on the individual works is avoided. Peck has used the
properties of installation art to reinforce rather than to dismantle
the activity of looking that accompanies the experience of being with
paintings.
Peck demonstrates that the
primacy of intimacy in the viewing experience can be asserted, provided
that the artist is willing to reorient the very behavior involved in
looking at artworks. Much contemporary art seems to be about convincing
the viewer that they are having a unique experience. Peck seems more
interested in permitting the viewer have one, but on his own terms.
Peck's work is a product of idiosyncrasy rather than an illustration
of it, which is what makes this show so satisfying.
