TOBIAS MADISON – CRISIS TOURISM
2017-03-06Tony Lewis’s practice focuses on the relationship between semiotics and language: graphite pencil and paper are the mediums the artist uses to trace and create abstract narratives and reflections on the notion of the gestural. When I Felt Like I Could Sing That, Then I Felt Like I Was In embodies the artists’ research for pure abstraction: tracing the conclusion of a research process that started in his earlier series of drawings titled Gregg Shorthand.
This new body of work, where graphite and coloured pencils generate impulsive and rhythmic shapes on paper, is intended by Lewis as a further exploration of the Gregg Shorthand system and its connection to sound, speech and pulse. In this series of drawings seemingly simple abstractions conceal intricate narratives, “beginning with a phoneme gesture as the systematic foundation (of the drawing), the coloured pencil works to support, react to, and riff off of the initial rhythm put forth by linguistic sound, creating a sequence of improvisation, and a diagram of cosmic libido.” Each drawing in the exhibition results as a take on planned yet raw abstraction. Fragments of phonetics and colour form a visual and musical composition of chatter and shapes, which merge together to offer a reflection on the convergence of sound, language and tones.
Opposite – Ts, Ts, Tsss, 2016
Exhibition runs through to April 8th, 2017
Massimo De Carlo
55 South Audley Street
London
W1K 2QH
