Paul Mosse Amor Infiniti

This exhibition is the third solo show for Paul Mosse at Green On Red Gallery. Mosse's work is well known for its dynamic and beautiful surfaces and the artist is highly regarded for the degree to which he manipulates the accumulation of materials that comprise his paintings. This exhibition, which numbers approximately seven paintings, is possibly his most confident show to-date. This recent body of work not only varies in size - past exhibitions have always featured large-scale woks - but have become progressively more volumetric. The intensity and almost dizzying cacophony of paint and detritus of these works is balanced by the heft and weight of their underlying structures, and by the possibility of a place recalled and the hint of narrative which each work evokes.

E.H.Gombrich wrote in The Sense of Order in reference to Islamic and Celtic artists/craftsmen, "The urge which drives the decorator to go on filling any resultant void is generally described as horror vacui, which is supposedly characteristic of many non-classical styles. Maybe the term amor infiniti, the love of the infinite would be a more fitting description. Framing, filling linking. Any of these procedures of 'graded complication' can point the way toward infinity...Contemplating (this work) one realizes that the distinction I have proposed between the constraints of the material and those of geometry cannot always be upheld. The amor infiniti aims at surmounting all constraints. The noble urge which makes the craftsman subdue his material also makes him stretch the bounds of inventiveness."

Almost certainly Mosse's working method can be likened to Gombrich's description. Each work encompasses acts of destruction with meticulously nuanced compositions, of deliberate sabotages and accidental and organic accumulations. The overall effect is a slow reveal - these works have the minimalist rigour of Artschwager's wood constructions or Frank Stella's monumental paintings, yet their surfaces equally suggest the influence of the Irish landscape. No matter what perspective the viewer brings to these paintings, they demand a sustained act of looking, exploring and engaging with the work.

Pressetext

Paul Mosse "Amor Infiniti"