Upon entering the airy spacious Gagosian gallery at 541 W 24 St., the viewer is met with the vibrant explosion from Spencer Sweeney’s The Painted Bride. Set on unstretched linen, Sweeney divides his canvas into four vertical sectors with bold swaths of neon orange oil paint resembling the silhouettes of simplistic trees. At the top of the frame, these trees melt into fragmented blocks of blues and magenta, creating a pictorial separation from the rest of the work.
The background is filled with green mountainous humps that devolve into abstracted forms towards the bottom of the frame, setting the stage for a rumpus band. The most rudimentary figure plays a circular drum in profile, poised in the middle of the composition. The drummer is painted in a light green hue, however the arms transform into a dark green when shown in front of the drum. The figure holds a coral toned mallet, emblematic of the percussive noise created. The drummer wears a red belt that leads into an overarching ovular form, spanning the entire composition, and creating a sense of community amongst the players. Off of the drummer's foot sits a heavily abstracted pianist. This band member is born out of a tear drop form containing four grayscale horns, pointing in various directions. A chartreuse line forms down the middle of the figure, diverging outwards before forming into an oval. In this oval sits three short and expressive lines, amalgamating into a form reminiscent of lips whistling a lively tune. The encompassing tear drop reaches out into two arms that crown a fully rendered keyboard, with fingers that ebb and flow into the movement of the playing song.
In front of the pianist sits two olive green and burnt umber, roughly rendered wine bottles; from my perspective, indicative of a good time had by all. The bottles sit atop a black rectangle, representative of a table, that grounds the entire composition at the bottom of the scene. Overlapping with the table, at the rightmost sector, appears the most realized form’s wind instrument created from masses of greens and pinks. The instrument winds into the player's outstretched blue hand, and ultimately leads directly to the player’s eye that confronts the viewer, breaking spectatorship. The player's eye presides over a sweeping underlayer of red, forming the face and torso. Layered atop the red, baby blue and a darker red oil pastel create more nuanced variation to the figure’s form. Each mark lends complex characteristics, creating buttons, two arms, a chin, nose, and lips.
The tension between depiction and abstraction in The Painted Bride, amalgamate to a chaotic scene filled with sound and motion. The juxtaposition of improvisation and intentional orchestration within the composition, speak to both the presented band and Sweeney’s act of creation; leading me to reflect on the notion of controlled chaos within my own life.
Spencer Sweeney (1973 - Present)
The Painted Bride
Oil on Linen
Presented at Gagosian’s The Painted Bride
On View September 13 - October 19, 2024
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