Daniel Hesidence.
Sayej, Nadja
Greener Pastures Contemporary Art | Toronto, Canada
For Daniel Hesidence, painting never died. Or so at least his
brushstrokes suggest. In his first Canadian solo (through January 24),
the New York-based painter makes the case that painting may still be
alive and kicking. All five oils here, ranging from a miniscule 7-by-9
to a whopping, wall-sized 96-by-132 inches, are from his 2007 Untitled
(1 7 7 9/Pedestrians) series, whose mysterious numbers hold no more
clues than the infamous Hanger 18. Yet Hesidence's brush hones the
canvas like a celestial diamond cutter without leaving behind any shards
of the world beyond or beneath. It's as if painting had never gone
six feet under.
That's a far cry from those who came before him. Among the
first to declare the death of painting was Paul Delaroche. This was in
1839, after the rise of photography. Alexander Rodchenko and the
Constructivist gang followed in 1921, and in 1960 Ad Reinhardt claimed
with his somber black canvases that painting is no more than a hanging
corpse on a wall. It's no coincidence that the word pain can be
found in painting.
In this show, Hesidence goes to great pains to show otherwise. The
largest canvas on display is a rainbow of suave pastel lilac and cobalt
blues dipped in a sea of milk, its sometimes choppy brushstrokes calling
to mind Cy Twombly's. For the most part, this monster canvas is
reminiscent of a formless Willem de Kooning woman infused with the
whimsicality of Al Held. Clearly, Hesidence's style could be
packaged as latter-day abstract expressionism. But there's no need
to replay the now-broken record of modernism: Hesidence is neither lost
in, nor entirely over the past. He treats paint like taffy and kneads
together his influences--both historical and daringly hip--the same way.
For instance, the 96-by-72-inch canvas has a red-and-purple flame
forming a "V" shape, like your retro living room abstract
lifted from a shopping-mall framing store. But in true Hesidence style,
his braiding of loopy brushstrokes with the odd Gerhard Richter scrape
distorts the picturesque quality of an above-the-couch ornament.
It's slightly sloppy. Meaning, it leans toward soft mockery.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
That hipster irony continues in the 38-by-28-inch version where
long wet locks could easily feel at home in black velvet paintings or
tropical tourist art from Jamaica to Peru. But it's not all
painterly sarcasm. What matters most is how Hesidence, who ranges from a
scrappy dry-brusher to a wet-dripper, rarely relies on formula.
Especially in a medium that has been played out tenfold, this resistance
is ultimately what keeps the pulse of painting beating--even if it still
reeks of the retirement home.
