For over a decade, Christopher Robin Duncan has been capturing, reducing, stitching, and ensembling mild, leading to a physique of labor that intersects portray and pictures, collage and sculpture, the seen and the audible. In The Area Between Years, he presents at Pt.2, in collaboration with Rebecca Camacho Presents, an exhibition in numerous states of transition.
Mild, shadow, solar, moon, ocean, wind, material, porcelain, bronze, candles and sound- in time.
Duncan’s course of begins by inserting a chunk of material on a rooftop, exposing it to the weather for extended durations of time(6-12 months)––normally in correspondence with the lunar and photo voltaic cycles––after which introduced again to the studio. He then unfolds the material, unveiling various levels of sun-bleached varieties, some extra translucent or opaque than others, then proceeds to increase the material over stretcher bars. Initially, he would restrict as a lot as doable any gestural markings that will recommend the “artist’s hand,” the paintings-cum-photograms as unmediated documentation of pure phenomena; ultimately, he’d add a refined painted squared border to the floor, as a approach of demarcating a focus, making a push-and-pull between the unrehearsed varieties made by the solar and the artist’s attentiveness to the “unintended.”
As of late, Duncan’s course of entails reducing and stitching scraps of uncovered materials from earlier works (completed or unfinished), creating two-dimensional items the place a number of uncovered timelines intersect and kind half of a bigger entire. Collective time. The reducing, mixing and mending course of in these items brings the work nearer to the realm of music, the place by means of intersecting intervals of time, a observe, a chord, and an eventual composition is made. Sound as a lot as mild, performs a key element in his follow.
Experimenting with area recordings, percussive instruments- similar to cymbals, and harmonicas, Duncan creates compositions the place minimal sonic gestures evolve over time by means of looping and different types of layering, creating partitions of noise which might be each chaotic and transcendental. A speaker made in collaboration with artist/fabricator Ian Treasure will current a soundtrack for the exhibition- composed of stated area recordings and harmonicas, in addition to artist made flutes and bells. The textured qualities of his recordings, like Duncan’s two-dimensional works, are imbued with an vitality that may’t be absolutely harnessed.
In partaking with Duncan’s visually and sonically wealthy works, one should additionally take note of the invisible, to the weather which might be felt however not available. From mild to shadow, noise to silence; The Area Between Years is an exhibition that displays on the malleability of time: its fractured rhythm, the edge between private and collective time, and the reconciliation between the previous and the brand new. These questions have pushed Duncan to revisit approaches to art-making that had been as soon as renounced––fowl motifs and stitching as a gesture of drawing––and to design the unfolding of the exhibition as a development from daytime into nighttime, making the house a surreal inside panorama that’s each private and accessible.
The Area Between Years is a mirrored image of Duncan’s 20 year-long trajectory as an artist, though removed from being an exhibition survey, it nonetheless illustrates the artist’s shifting perspective to supplies, sound, and the atmosphere. The works are grounded, but nonetheless retain an experimental high quality.
Maybe that’s the definition of being smart?
Written by Diego Villalobos