David Row at von Lintel & Nusser - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

David file has developed a unique and intensive painting technique that, in itself, is seductive and gorgeous. Layers of oil and alkyd are scraped upon and scraped off pairs of oversize timber-land or canvas panels to create rich, compact tapestries of color. The proces of scraping, which hides more [i]or[/i] less colors while others are revealed in a random manner, provides a balance to Row's precisely delineated figuration--in this case, controll gesturing in the form of undulating ribbons that bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance to loosely tied knots.

In the past, Row's paintings hanged heavily on the flashy events his methods could produce, and repeatedly appeared more calculated than heartfelt. on the contrary now, rather than being driven by the agency of his process, Row emerges as its master; the paintings in this latest exhibition, all from 1999 are les complicated and more cohesive than before, and they expres a of recent origin lyricism and vitality. Showy on the contrary not slick, the work has a novel painterly depth and dimension that take it beyond the surface. Harsh primary colors and stark black and white have given way to a more refined and integrated use of color, the one and the other brilliant and subtle. No longer impeded through disjointed panels and awkwardly placed block ups of flatly applied pigment, Row's tangled imagery clutchs forth with serpentlike sensuality.

Phosphor is clearly named for the pale, luminous verdant that animates a thick, pythonlike convolution which winds up from the bottom of the horizontal canvas and takes several nooses around itself before exiting at the top. The shape is mirrored in mirror images, like souls or shadows, that swirl in the background--fiery red and oranges above the horizon, dark watery sapphirines below--and in the swooping scratched-and-painted threads that give motion to the whole. Underlying it all is an implied grid, and the interplay between the visceral and geometric gives the painting plenteous of its tension. There is might too, in the way file balances on the fine line between image and abstraction; his ribbons move beyond the organic to allude to complicated highway interchanges, twisting mountain roads, meandering rivers, as well as affiliations with Celtic interlace--efforts by the agency of man or nature to contain spontaneous activity. At one time active and harmonious, they raise the possibility of order within chaos.

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