An Enigmatic Premise

Once you let yourself nerd out over what, why, and how something was painted, it can get exceptionally exciting and rewarding. And this was certainly the case with Damien Meade’s work, including his current solo show with CAR Gallery in Bologna, Italy.

I’ve known and been a fan of Meade‘s work for a few years and even had the honor of curating it in one of my projects a couple of years ago. While I've always appreciated his visuals and enjoyed how they’re painted, they’ve always been a mystery of sorts. New paintings only deepened this effect: they feel beautifully peaceful, calming, almost romantic, yet packed with a timeless sense of mystery and esoteric meaning through a strange translucency.

Mostly busts and sculptures, some of which seem to sprout from the ground, these aren’t existing artifacts or relics imbued with symbolism. The references are clay figures that Meade makes himself (before pummeling them into nothing), then paints. When I asked him what qualities he looks for, he answered, “something that holds my attention, that I don’t fully understand, and that I need to keep looking at.” Such an enigmatic premise, even for the creator himself, leaves even more ambiguity for the viewer, who intrinsically searches for meaning in what they observe. This approach boils down to how painting condenses unconscious impulses and emotions into a physical form, revealing them to both the artist and the viewer. Or, “something quantum about painting,” as Meade calls it.

To obscure things further, Meade uses a dry brush, applying a haze of a surprisingly wide palette to build exceptionally pale, dramatically lit images. With that, he is consciously removing any possibility of seeing the work as a presentation of skill. “Bad art is when the art exists to demonstrate skill,” he said, insisting that his process and the technique it employs enable "the mediation of matter." In that sense, the realization that both clay and paint are grounded minerals held together by a liquid binder is “just a material rhyme,” as they allow “the fusing of matter with cognition.” —Saša Bogojev