John Dante Bianchi → So This Is Permanent
February 18th - April 2nd, 2016
Galerie Derouillon, Haut Marais
Galerie Derouillon is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of New York-based artist John Dante Bianchi in Paris.
So this is permanent
My paintings are made on a set of sculptural panels, which I create by layering and joining materials with an array of surface textures. On each panel, an intricately composed coating of vivid colors is blanched with a thin layer of white. Working the layers together through a sculptural process of digging into and adding onto the paint, I create the appearance of a Technicolor bruise that is in the midst of emerging or receding. Although the final result is not predetermined, I do aim to achieve certain results in the surfaces of these pieces. They often appear flat, evoking the matte texture of a photograph, or a photographed painting. I want to achieve a balance of abjection and beauty, where space, time, and depth are flattened out.
Traditionally seen as a mark of destruction, Bianchi recontextualizes bodily trauma as an opportunity for regeneration and growth, whereby breaking down an existing form makes way for the creation of a new one. This somewhat counterintuitive process is literalized in the bruise but is also critical to many processes of growth and personal development. By giving permanence to the fleeting moment of the bruise, Bianchi opens up a new possibility for reflection on it and that which it symbolizes.
Similarly, a series of new sculptural panels resemble crystalline, geological forms, caught between decay and regeneration. Based on moments of traumatic collision, these new pieces freeze and memorialize the picture plane into a three dimensional relief. The panels are caught in a perpetual moment of destruction and creation while bridging painting and sculpture, revealing how both imagined space and actual space are continuously folding and unfolding into one another.
