Aimee Terburg: Both Sides Now

Gray Contemporary is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in the United States of Aimée Terburg. Both Sides Now opens Saturday, September 10th from 5 – 9 pm with the artist present,and will continue through October 15th, 2016.

Aime?e Terburg’s (NL) Both Sides Now, her first solo exhibition with the gallery, showcases a selection of her acrylic paintings from the ongoing series Divisibilitas in the Main Gallery and Monochromonito in the Second Gallery.?

Her research is set within the encounter between process, maker and viewer. Choosing quick drying acrylic for her paintings, every thin layer has an inimitable result that emanates simplicity; defined by actions and decisions in time and gestures with big brushes, planes are build up or distorted, playing out aspects of perception.

Starting with a subjective use of color, composition and gesture formed by her associations with nature and culture, her labor-intensive methodology takes over: using the dynamic between chance and control, the captured marks are rehearsed until the transcend into an autonomy of the moment; highlighting a decision and an element within the painting.?

The black distorted surfaces in the paintings of the series Divisibilitas (Latin for Divisible) installed in the Main Gallery, are juxtaposed with subtle diversified monochrome yellows. The paintings appear as a sequel of options of the same moment. Taking closer looks, every painting shows its own unity of dualism and individual sense of potential flux in deformed brush gestures.

The distorted surfaces also question their making. Aime?e Terburg handles extreme thin layers of acrylic that appear as photo- or serigraphy, drawing the viewer in. While the idiom of the reductive art is articulated, challenged by the yellow monochrome planes, the perceptual way of a traditional (reversed) ‘repoussoir’ is pronounced simultaneously referring to color field painting.

This creates a contemplative shifting of illusion of depth, the associative and simulacra, of the static and spheric to draw the viewer in even more.?

In the Second Gallery the black surfaces of the Monochromonito series show frozen moments of brush actions within the spared edges of the painting. As the gestures are ‘negatives’, absences of paint taken out of a wet monochrome black surface, requiring timing and concentration while leaving room for chance.

The spared edges as a frame refer to monitors and the traditional concept of the window as ‘see-through’ in painting; as a marker of difference between what’s inside and outside. Subtly denying the material surface of the canvas; Terburg shows the ambiguity and unity of illusion of depth and object, of viewer and painting.

A brief description of the Artist:
Aime?e Terburg (b. 1971) lives and works in Groningen, the Netherlands. She received her BFA for autonomous painting and graphic arts Cum Laude at Art Academy Minerva in Groningen (NL).

Recent exhibitions include: Gallery Hein Elferink, NL (2016); Transmitter, New York City (US debut, 2015); Studio 1.1, London, UK (2015); Gallery Crelan, Brussels, BE (2015); ruimteCAESUUR, Middelburg, NL (2015); Dosenfabrik, Hamburg DE (2014); Museum Belve?de?re, Heerenveen, NL (2014); Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2014); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK (2014); ParisCONCRET, Paris, FR (2014).

Her art was nominated for the International Solo Award of the Spring Exhibition, Copenhagen, DK (2014); the biennial Nordwestkunst Price, DE (2013); the J.K. Egberts Award, NL (2007).

Terburg’s work was included in the ‘Summer Exhibition Illustrated 2014’ of the Royal Academy of Arts, London among 177 artists and art collections of the Coo?perative bank Crelan (BE), Dutch Gasunion (NL), Foundation ‘FB Oranjewoud’ (NL) and private art collections.

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/aimeeterburg