Gabriel Hartley

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Continuing in the Bloomberg New Contempories vein that I initiated with my last blog about Daniel Pasteiner, this artist became one of my other favorites from 2008. Some of his most interesting and numerous works are his altered postcards. Theres something terrifically nightmarish about the pulpy abstract painted structures superimposed over otherwise lovely images of natural landscapes and picturesque buildings. They could be biological or architectural, or scarier still both - invasive places of habitation that grow over and around whatever surface or being they happen to land on like some macroviral eruption. They remind me of Aaron Curry's From Dwellers (In Vulgar Space) series.

Whilst his postcards suit the Fallen Over cannon and thus my love of readymade/appropiation best, some of his most eye popping works are his sculptures. Like the postcards they remind me of the huge oozing nameless things that Lovecraft fans daydream about. However the inherantly 3dimensional nature of sculpture makes them look like extraplanar animals frozen in our corporeal material universe. They don't look so much made as they do preserved.

http://www.gabrielhartley.co.uk/cv.html

An Introduction to Fallen Over

Daniel Pasteiner

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An old favorite of mine from Bloomberg New Contempories 2007* This first piece I ever came across can be seen in the topmost image and its entitled Noland. Lots of sculpters like to suggest movement or growth in their works, the impressive thing about this materially unheirachial is that during its creation it did just that. Its a frozen explosion of a 'done-in-one-go' creativity. Other noteworthy pieces are his architectural combines made of LED lamps, aberrant shelves and various fancy detritus. And his shrink-wrapped oil paintings of simplistic shapely patterns that hover gently between child-like COBRA style impulsiveness and minimalist tidiness.

Daniel seems to be interested in how paintings, readymades and mega modernist sculpture (you know the kind) have almost analgamated together in the 00's, how the borders between them have gone a bit soft. He seems less concerned with making dogmatic artistic statements and as he put it ~ "Visual pleasure is the key to my process." For an appropiation junkie like me his artwork is akin to ingesting Tibetan morning grass. Take time to check out his incredibly enigmatic single page website at http://www.danielpasteiner.com/public.html.

[*If you've read the New Contempories 2007 publication you might have noticed how much i'm essentially ripping their judges writing style off. I like to think of myself as a bargain basement critic.]

An Introduction to Fallen Over