Consider: Scott Nedrelow – Afterlight

Location: David Petersen Gallery, Minneapolis.

Items: Six paintings, on Epson “premium luster” photo paper, measuring 60” wide x 90” high, or 92” when inside their beveled, white, glassless frames. This is good, as the paintings are given room to breathe and are not constrained by unnecessary boundary. Paintings are broken into groups of three, two and one.

Items: Two videos play on HD screens placed side by side and leaned vertically against a wall in a dark, curtained backroom of the gallery. Each video records a Florida beach near Nedrelow’s parents’ home and is focused on the horizon line. One screen begins in darkness, the other in light, and as the horizon moves in each, the process inverts during the 45-minute piece.

Observations: Observable investigations in Nedrelow’s presented works seem to fall into two categories: LIGHT: post-photographic process, printing, day and night, “after” dark (which is actually during dark). These investigations connect neatly into questions of TIME: the rotation of the earth, physics in relation to process of orienting oneself, the act of seeing, any action which requires the slowing of time.

Notes: Regarding the paintings, from series titled Untitled (Afterlight) – During a studio visit with the artist, Nedrelow shows me how these paintings are made, and the process used to achieve the subtle coloring. Paint is applied using an airbrush to manually spray CMYK (Cyan – Magenta – Yellow – blacK) colors used by desktop printers. The large-format photographic paper is rolled into itself from both sides, fastened into a tighter version of the capital of an Ionic column, and stood on its end. In regards to a distinctive sort of “medium is the message” process, in regards to the airbrushing of the surface, Nedrelow says, “It is important that the paper itself is being the leader of the image…”

The application of these inks becomes a physical manifestation of the shape of the paper turned in on itself, with two broader bars of color located outside the untouched center, echoed by smaller lines of the same color closer to the border. Subtle mixing is achieved when pure color is laid on top of pure color, in a pattern similar to chiasmus (diagram), where an arrangement of colors are related to one another in an ‘X’ fashion. Nedrelow explains this system, “It gives me something similar to a structure…to give the whole body of work, even if not hung together, they have a pair, and a direct relationship to process.”

Thoughts:

• Work is best viewed from a distance, in this case, against furthest respective wall in gallery. Ink is almost imperceptible when viewed up close, as are differentiations in color from top to bottom.
• Photographic process -> dependent on light <- vision dependent on light. The changing perspective from both near and far becomes an investigation into of the act of seeing.
• Press release mentions that the title of the exhibition “…alludes to shadows and the idea of an afterimage. An afterimage is the compensation of the eye’s retina after the original visual stimulus.” Italics in the above quote are mine, by way of noting the unique phenomenal experience of vision, the way the human eye copes with and physically processes information, to such a degree that an image remains seen even after it is removed from sight.

Additional thoughts:

After the separation of the image from the eye, what remains? And where?

On how separating the self brings the artist closer to the core: Nedrelow, while firmly in control of both concept and production of his works, often separates himself from establishing narrative focus. Specific representational elements resulting from the work he also usually leaves to the determination of some outside agency. “I don’t have to be compositionally responsible for the content, it is related to the material”, explained Nedrelow, “When folded, the paper almost becomes a stencil on itself”.

On time as vehicle: Nedrelow’s video piece, Earthrise/Earthset, also investigates the movement of light and the idea of stepping back to see a greater whole. The piece is not a time-lapse, but rather a documentation of a specific experience of time, capturing both the setting and rising sun. The poetry lies in the use of the camera, which was attached to an astrological mount which slowly moves. Though this camera basically appears motionless, the mount’s shifting gears allow the recording of the slow, imperceptible movements of the earth’s rotation.  When asked if the focus is the light itself, or rather the time needed to comprehend light, Nedrelow responds, “It’s both I think— but as a way of telling a story in art, light that accumulates or changes imperceptibly is best.”

Et cetera:  Two notes, written during a studio visit with the artist. The first, which I later discovered to be from Buckminster Fuller, is used in the texts associated with Afterlight:

The most important thing to teach your children is that the sun does not rise and set. It is the Earth that revolves around the sun. Then teach them the concepts of North, South, East and West, and that they relate to where they happen to be on the planet’s surface at that time. Everything else will follow.

The second note is unattributed, either my own observation or a quote from the artist: “There is a physical correlation between how you relate to the world, and physics explains this”. Once understood, it is either easier, or more difficult, to face the forces of the universe.

Related exhibition information:

Scott Nedrelow – Afterlight is on view now through April 5, 2014, at David Petersen Gallery. The gallery, located at 2018 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis, is open Wednesday through Saturday, 11-6, or by appointment.