Nick Kersulis at Devin Borden

Robert Boyd


Nicholas Kersulis, Within Without the Space of a Corner (He Spent Days Wandering with Headphones on, Lest He Forget His Heritage), 2010-2013, Oil on jute on panel; framed c-print mounted on aluminum Artist’s photograph of a guardrail on a country road with anarchy symbol graffiti. 78 x 73” painting, overall,  24 ¼ x 16 ¼” photograph

The last time I saw work by Nicholas Kersulis, he had painted rocks with gesso--coat after coat--until the gesso was about as thick as the rock itself.  At the time, I thought of them as examples of a process. A very obsessive process. A process that in a way reflected actual geological processes of laying down layer after layer of sediment until sandstone or shale is created.

Nicholas Kersulis, Within Without the Space of a Corner (He Spent Days Wandering with Headphones on, Lest He Forget His Heritage) detail, 2010-2013, Oil on jute on panel; framed c-print mounted on aluminum Artist’s photograph of a guardrail on a country road with anarchy symbol graffiti. 78 x 73” painting, overall 24 ¼ x 16 ¼” photograph

And I saw some of the same obsessive layering in this show. In the painting above (which I'll call Headphones for short), he paints an outer square around an inner square, alternating black and white. As a consequence of this repetitive action, the corners (where the brushstrokes overlap) become especially built up with alternating layers of black and white. They turn this series of five horizontally stacked paintings into a sculptural group, projecting into the viewer's space.

But this exhibit, Within Without the Space of a Corner at Devin Borden Gallery, made me look back on those gessoed rocks differently. Because this show is all about paired things. Things that go with another thing, that are almost twinned (but never perfectly so); things that are unequal or imperfect reflections of another thing. And those gessoed rocks fit into this--Kersulis essentially created a second rock out of gesso for each of his original rocks.


Nicholas Kersulis, Within Without the Space of a Corner (After death, but before burial), 2013, Oil on jute on panel; framed c-print mounted on aluminum Appropriated image of Anita Pallenberg and Brian Jones with the same haircut, posed with hands mirroring each other’s within the frame. 76 x 72” painting, overall, 24 ¼ x 16 ¼” photograph

So each piece in the show is a pair--painting(s) on one side and photo on the other. The pairs are not alike (in medium, in scale) and are further differentiated by physical separation--some are separated by doorways, as with Headphones and After death.  Others are separated by being on different walls in corners.


Nicholas Kersulis, Within Without the Space of a Corner (After death, but before burial) detail, 2013, Oil on jute on panel; framed c-print mounted on aluminum Appropriated image of Anita Pallenberg and Brian Jones with the same haircut, posed with hands mirroring each other’s within the frame. 76 x 72” painting, overall, 24 ¼ x 16 ¼” photograph

The imperfect pairing is reinforced in some of the photos. In After death, we have a photographic image on one side and a series of words on the other. Both can be read as representing the same thing, Anita Pallenberg and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Pallenberg, a model, was Jones' girlfriend for a few years in the 60s. She left him in 1967 because he was physically abusive and became Kieth Richards' companion for over a decade. Jones was found dead in his pool in 1969. Some of the words seem to refer to Jones, who could be "cruel and difficult," had a crush on "Françoise Hardy," was known to be "artistically unsatisfied," and was a Pisces.

In the photo, Pallenberg and Jones are posed in a mirror image of one another. Their hands are in similar positions, their bangs are cut long, their eyes deeply shadowed. They are mirrors are exact but opposite, as are they by virtue of being male and female who, in this image at least, resemble one another closely.

This mirroring occurs in the painted part of After Death as well. The two-square paintings at the top and bottom each feature a red side and a blue side, but they are switched. The four-square paintings are predominately one color each, red above and blue below. And each square in the middle section is equally red and blue.


Nicholas Kersulis, Within Without the Space of a Corner (Be Here I), 2013, Oil on canvas; framed c-print mounted on aluminum Warm grey and cool grey paintings paired with a color photograph diptych, a section of the image desaturated. 76 x 72” painting, overall 24 ¼ x 16 ¼” photograph

The notion of an imperfect mirroring is quite literally carried out in Here Be I. The painted panels repeat the basic square arrangements of the other pieces, but instead of being two highly contrasting colors, they are uniform grey. The viewer can still make out the squares from the brushstrokes, however.

Nicholas Kersulis, Within Without the Space of a Corner (Be Here I) detail, 2013, Oil on canvas; framed c-print mounted on aluminum Warm grey and cool grey paintings paired with a color photograph diptych, a section of the image desaturated. 76 x 72” painting, overall, 24 ¼ x 16 ¼” photograph

The photograph is a photo of the central painted panel from After death, laying on a flat surface with a mirror propped up beside it. Kersulis has digitally manipulated the photo to desaturate the image of the painting so that it looks completely grey. But he has left the reflection of the painting along. This creates an amusing optical illusion, that a grey painting is being reflected in bright colors. And it is yet another imperfect pairing. Like Anita and Brian, the painting and its reflection are very similar but not identical.

All the other pieces in this show, save one, are built around this kind of pairing. They all have five stacked paintings on one side and a photo of some sort on the other side. Some of the paintings are heavily impastoed and painted on jute, some are painted on canvas in thinned, liquid layers. They all start at the top with two squares, then four, then six, then four and then two at the bottom. The photos are all the same size.


Nicholas Kersulis, Within Without the Space of a Corner (Not There—Here), 2013, Two black mirror panels installed equidistant from a corner, edition of 3, 78 X 35 X ¾” each

Not There--Here makes the mirroring aspect of the work most explicit. Two black mirrors are in a corner, reflecting different parts of the room and each other to an extent. Unlike all the other pairs in the show, these are identical.

All this pairing and twinning and mirroring suggests that these ideas are important to Kersulis. I assume that "pairing" has some particular resonance for him. But I'm not privy to that. Notions of pairs, twins, dyads, mirror images, etc., have an infinity of meanings and cultural associations. For me, I tend to think of literature (stories like "The Other" by Jorge Luis Borges and Gemini by Michel Tournier and The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino) or mythology (Castor and Pollux, Romulus and Remus). You may have your own associations for pairing, twinning or mirroring. And a stroll through Within Without the Space of a Corner may draw forth those associations in you.

Tchotchkes, Knickknacks and Scale Models at Devin Borden

by Robert Boyd

You don't see a lot of sculpture in galleries. Work tend to be "wall art"--paintings, photos, drawings, collages, reliefs, etc. The reason is obvious--sculpture is hard to own and display. For a collector, sculpture displaces furniture. It renders some amount of floor space unusable. It's just not as convenient to collect as wall art. So that means sculpture is not something you see very often in art galleries. And that's too bad.

But Devin Borden got around the inconvenience factor with his show Table Top by showing mostly very small sculptures--the kind that can fit on a bookshelf or in a china cabinet. The funny thing is that when I think of pieces like that, I think of ceramic tchotchkes. Things your grandmother might have cluttering up her parlor. Or to be more modern about it, the toys and action figures that hipsters and comics nerds collect--you can buy stuff like that at Domy or Bedrock City.

And in a way, the work in this group show is a variation of that. Matt Messinger's pieces seem to be a direct riff on that theme of grandmother-friendly ceramic tchotchke.



Matt Messinger small sculpture installation



Matt Messinger, Untitled (Cat), 2011, found ceramic, buttons, resin

When I see stacks of buttons like that, I think of Tara Donovan, but her use of them is clearly different. She uses identical buttons to create a texture. Her buttons tend to have neutral, unassuming colors. Messinger is going for color with his stacks.



Matt Messinger, Untitled (Owl and Teacup), 2012, found ceramic, buttons, resin

So unlike Donovan, I think Messinger is all about these little ceramic things and the buttons for what they signify--I kind of domesticity that reminds one of  of a particular place and time. You are a child and you visit your aunt or grandmother and you see these things, and you nose around, looking in drawers (because you're bored) and you find old buttons. The three twisting stacks of buttons in untitled (Owl and Teacup) reminded me of DNA. And this kind of stuff is in our DNA. It's a part of our collective culture.



more Matt Messinger in the back room

Awww, cute!



Sharon Engelstein, Cat Mount, 2008, plaster and cyanoacrylate adhesive 3-D print

Also verging on cute is Cat Mount by Sharon Engelstein. But it's also kind of mysterious. Because the image is small, when I saw it I saw it as a scale model for something bigger. With the jagged rock-like form and the steps on the right, you could see it as the top of a rock outcropping, or the very summit of a mountain. And on top of this mountain is a strange piece of cartoon-cat-shaped equipment. It has two pipes, implying liquid or gas moving through it. It could almost be a piece of gas pipeline equipment. Except that it's cat-shaped. I imagine that someone has taken a long stairway up the side of a mountain--not a high mountain (no snow), but still it took some effort to get to the top. And then you behold this mysterious piece of equipment. To me, that would be like discovering that magic is real. It's a hike up a mountain worth taking. Needless to say, I love this little sculpture.



Sharon Engelstein, Bumbry, 2002, plaster and cyanoacrylate adhesive 3-D print

This earlier piece, Bumbry, feels like a model for one of her large forced-air pieces, but I have never seen this particular arrangement of bulbous partial spheres in any of those larger pieces. But like the inflatable pieces, it is playful and biomorphic.


Nicholas Kersulis, Objects for a Table (Rocks: Taos: Rumsfeld), 2010, black gesso on found rocks/studio table with Cornforth White paint

These rocks by Nicholas Kersulis are not cute at all. Kersulis was a Core fellow a few years ago. I've seen similar pieces to this where he used white gesso. I don't know how he makes the gesso so thick, except that maybe he paints on layer after layer. Gesso is naturally white because it's made out of gypsum and chalk, but it can have pigment mixed in, which is presumably the case here.



Nicholas Kersulis, Objects for a Table (Rocks: Taos: Rumsfeld) detail, 2010, black gesso on found rocks/studio table with Cornforth White paint

The way the gesso part of each rock is kind of swirly makes it look a bit like obsidian (although less glassy than obsidian). Its utter blackness reminds one of coal or asphalt. The fact that the rocks are bisected in a way--the bottom half natural rock, the top half black thick gesso, make me think of rock strata. And the display on the table looks like a collection. With a glass top to turn it into a vitrine, it could be a display in a natural history museum. But one can't get around the fact that the gesso portion of each "rock" looks weird and unnatural. And ironically, that's what is so appealing about them.



Kaneem Smith, Untitled (White), 2010, cloth, cotton balls, wax; and Wring Out, 2012, burlap, cotton, wax

Kaneem Smith's work goes a bit off message--Untitled (White) is a wall hanging instead of a table-top sculpture. But the scale is the thing, really. Even though Smith is working on table-top scale, she has produced work that is the opposite of cute (like Kersulis). These pieces are not going into auntie's china cabinet. The work is grungy. The use of burlap and cotton perhaps are meant to recall the importance of cotton in Houston (and the South generally), and the grungy quality of the work, as well as the "wrung out" aspect of Wring Out may be a reference to the back-breaking labor, performed first by black slaves and later by black sharecroppers in appalling conditions.

 
Darryl Lauster, Diarama, 2011, found toys, electric motor, wooden table

Darryl Lauster takes U.S. history and the American scene as the subject of his often quite amusing artwork. Diarama [sic] takes on the revolutionary war. The motor keeps the seesaw element rocking back and forth--sometimes the British are up, sometimes the revolutionary soldier is up.



Darryl Lauster, The New World, 2012, acrylic, electric aquarium pump, steel, brass, water, cement and silicone

The New World seems especially appropriate for Houston. In fact, I'm always puzzled by the relative lack of art that relates to oil and gas production. It was in 1863 that Charles Baudelaire in "The Painter of Modern Life" instructed artists to look around and depict the modern world in which they lived in their art. And yet, oil production remains under-explored as an artistic subject. This witty piece, like The New World, has a kinetic element--bubbles pumped from the bottom that make the octopus clinging to the side of the platform move. Folks in the oil industry will recognize that this is a fairly archaic form of drilling platform.

Thematically, there is little to link these artists. Lauster and Smith both touch on industries that are associated with Houston historically. (Kersulis rocks, if you see the black gesso as symbolic of oil-bearing rock, could also be read as relating to oil production.) Messinger explores cuteness and nostalgia, and cuteness is touched on by both Engelstein and Lauster. But mainly what we have here is a heterogeneous collection of small sculptures, each with its own virtues.