Anglina Gualdoni Review

Angelina Gualdoni’s paintings in her ‘Proposals for Remnants’ show at the Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago possess an evident juxtaposition between hazy diffused color and rigorous brushstroke. From small, tightly rendered compositions of abstract lines to watery, translucent canvases that stretch up to 61” by 73,” her images reflect both avant-garde approaches to brushwork and to the older traditions of Batik, watercolor, and ink blotting.
She is most successful with the paintings where the acrylic is given free range over the untreated canvas, resulting in gradations of color reminiscent of ink’s playful interaction with watercolor: a visual representation of liquid memory. The tentative motion inherent in the gentle dipping of an ink brush into water on canvas explodes from her images, engulfed in saturated color. In ‘Blush,’ the vibrant fuchsia treatment spills over the controlled application of oil paint in the foreground, creating the effect of looking, literally, through rose-colored glasses at a long distant past. The imagery is all in once familiar and generic, reflecting a common denominator that seems to belong to everybody and nobody all at once. The vague recognition of reality in her images is perhaps the most poignant moment; the paintings are held together by the cognitive point where abstraction and representational artistry intersect and force the viewer into an acknowledgement of time and space.
This creation of fantasy worlds in overwhelming color establishes a unique perspective of empty, abandoned spaces and the remembrance of those spaces. Certain elements stand out in sharper contrast and definition, while simultaneously remaining generally muted by the fog of color that pervades each image, tinting the canvas with the significance of each shade. Although not nearly as visually noticeable as ‘Blush,’ ‘March through April’ effectively conveys loss and abandonment with a subdued grayish green palette and wispy, spidery strokes purposefully placed within the confines of canvas. The vaguely recognizable objects in this painting- a rock-like structure, constructed webbing, an article of clothing- all add to the immediate question between ownership and generality.
It is difficult not to think of artists like Helen Frankenthaler when looking at some of these images, especially in reference to the untreated canvas and color fields of color eminent in Gualdoni’s work. Unlike her the much older Frankenthaler, however, Gualdoni focuses less on the sheer application of paint and more on the cohesiveness of her imagery, which retains so much of its original representational form.
Her smaller canvases are cramped and jumbled, despite using a similar technique of combining oil marks on a tinted backing. Because of the limited spacing and overwhelming vibrancy of the oil marks, the images lose much of the atmosphere present in their larger brethren. The wash of color gets lost underneath the more noticeable strokes. ‘Odds and Ends’ seems crushed into a corner, forced into a losing battle overwhelmed by the energetic application of strokes that find little balance in the composition. ‘Untitled’ falls flat both literally in its lack of texture and motion and in its flattened, dulled color choice. Even the oil strokes seem uncontrolled and sloppy, losing their intense consistency evident in the other pieces. Only ‘Untitled (Blue Somersaults)’ manages to engage the space in a novel and interesting way. It focuses on the movement and containment of the canvas size to establish a visually charged composition of black inky smears and concise lines in lighter oil.
Seemingly experimental, Gualdoni’s ‘Cosmic Painting’ incorporates metallic paint with splashes of wash to create a changing space filled with gradient and light. There is bravery in the piece, which seems like experimentation in texture and medium. In person, unfortunately, the metallic paint looks appliquéd, and the ink seems a bit too reminiscent of tie-die projects, creating a crafted canvas that possesses little of the punch packed by some of the other works.
‘Proposal for Remnants’ steers Gualdoni from the traditions of painting physical, abandoned spaces liking shopping malls and cityscapes abstracted by combinations of inky color and confident oil marks and into the exploration of human memory and vague recollection. It seems a fitting path, although the images in her current exhibition seem much more loosely constructed and enveloped in veils of color more overwhelming than her previous imagery.
Her work retains the most interest when the tightness of her technical renderings benefits from the implication of light and haze in the images, preserving an implication of vagueness and anonymity. And although her mystified abandoned malls possess a distinct charm, the idea is perhaps not as original as her current work, which embraces the necessary cloudiness that expands its interpretation by a larger audience.
Angelina Gualdoni seems to be one of the few contemporary artists with both a signature style and a willingness to experiment with her medium, a brave choice in an art world becoming more and more likely to move away from paint and canvas as the mediums for creating work. Her technical competence defines a structure in the work and her explorations and color and application delineate a practice with novelty in its imagery, if not necessarily its combination of media.