Un Earth is a new body of work featuring different approaches to drawing and painting. The title of the exhibition hints at the territory Angus Galloway began exploring following a move to Nashville and a fresh start at Vanderbilt University. The opportunity to show in Space 204 Gallery is an invitation to experiment with different media and push the paper itself in new directions.
In the year leading up to Un Earth, personal experiences led to research into the complexity of our bodies’ skin, specifically the fascia, a web-like structure of connective tissue that lies just below the epidermis. This foundational layer is out of sight but critical to everything from buttressing our skeletal framework to holding organs in place. As he began making new drawings there was conscious desire to go beyond the surface of the paper to locate something suspended in the paper’s fabric, leading to a cyclical process of building up marks and pushing them back by applying gesso and paint until the surface is obscured. In the process, the paper develops a network of mysterious connections, and following these signals leads one deeper into the drawing.
The exhibition consists of three distinct bodies of work that use this method: Equilibrium, Visitors, and Circulation. The initial gestural marks in Equilibrium give way to a geometry of simple shapes that champion new pathways to a belowground. This contrasts with the figural elements that suggest the presence of Visitors with incomplete anatomies but at a human scale. Situated inside layers of watercolor the character in each frame peers beyond the picture plane demanding connection with the viewer. Circulation uses a subtractive technique by applying acrylic paint and paste onto the works and then carving into the physical space to create new vantage points.
