by Christopher Bruni
Tine Weppler’s investigations in form and color at her recent Artifact exhibition address various issues of cultural engagement. The play quality pervades these efforts in which one can discern figural shapes that hover tremulously over the surfaces. The near-evanescent movements of these forms are held further in check by the balanced and nuanced use of more concentrically held together fluid marks, such as spills, washes and drips. This systematic oscillation between space and the concentration of energy fields, which holds this space at bay creates a charged atmosphere which keeps us in the work’s thrall.
The artist explores the use of process and the unconscious as an exhilarating way to tear down the veils that prevent true perception to occur and the re-presentation of new experiences. What is particularly striking in many of Weppler’s images is the assured way the artist takes the best possible opportunities to enlarge her visual transformations in order for her even faintest phantom images to transform their visual character. The work itself is charged with expressiveness which we feel most directly as circuitous meandering of color and texture surge with an electric dynamism of her paintings. The artist’s vistas keep us suspended, in equipoise, between the edge of chaos and the brink of lucidity.
Christopher Bruni is an art critic living and working in Manhattan