Temporary Tunnels
Russell Leng
October 26th — December 9th, 2017
Opening Thursday October 26th, 7:00 — 10:00PM
Russell Leng
October 26th — December 9th, 2017
Opening Thursday October 26th, 7:00 — 10:00PM
Temporary Tunnels installation view, Russell Leng, 2017
Temporary Tunnels presents 8 new paintings and a series of drawings by Leng incorporated into a site-specific installation.
After I left the clearing (where the stone table offered so much) I entered a space that appeared when needed and faded once passed through. It was solid but permeable - sandstone perhaps, with tiny holes punctured into its surface. As I entered this tunnel, my pockets became heavy. Reaching in, I found lost objects that seemed familiar. I placed each one into a hole and a memory played out in colour. Cloudy stones became piles of blue powder. They multiplied in my peripheral vision, and diminished in scale as my eyes focused back on them. Clarity weakened their wonder and denied their rarity.
I continue through and arrive at the mouth of another tunnel, this one high-key white. A cut in the wall calls for a healing noise to patch, cover and repair. A shimmer behind, half in half out. I navigate over the uneven terrain, aided by spikes secured to my feet. They lead me to a tightly woven plane, then ask to be used. I break the spikes from my toes and start to scrape, cut and arrange. As I work, I see a round form ahead, whispering a familiar invitation.
Russell Leng is a Canadian artist based in Vancouver. His paintings involve discovery as both method and content, using cues from other searching practices such as metal-detecting, rescue missions, and archaeological field-work. His studio practice is centered around written narratives about a lone character who surveys unfamiliar spaces as they search for, and dig up objects. These findings are then collected and preserved. As objects emerge from the fictional ground, the paintings themselves become new sites where traces are uncovered, documented, and preserved through layers of paint and other materials. Leng incorporates disparate materials such as construction chalk, silicone, or holographic foil, challenging material convention around 2-D mediums. Processes such as sanding, cutting, and collaging intentionally disrupt artistic predictability and expand on the theme of exposing forms underneath both fictional surfaces from the written text, and the physical surface of the painting. The imagery suggests spaces such as caves, topographical maps, or found arrangements of abstract forms. Representation is eschewed for the fragmentary, ambiguous, and partially revealed. Leng’s work invites the viewer to remain in a posture of investigation while inhabiting the uncertainty of their own findings within each work.
After I left the clearing (where the stone table offered so much) I entered a space that appeared when needed and faded once passed through. It was solid but permeable - sandstone perhaps, with tiny holes punctured into its surface. As I entered this tunnel, my pockets became heavy. Reaching in, I found lost objects that seemed familiar. I placed each one into a hole and a memory played out in colour. Cloudy stones became piles of blue powder. They multiplied in my peripheral vision, and diminished in scale as my eyes focused back on them. Clarity weakened their wonder and denied their rarity.
I continue through and arrive at the mouth of another tunnel, this one high-key white. A cut in the wall calls for a healing noise to patch, cover and repair. A shimmer behind, half in half out. I navigate over the uneven terrain, aided by spikes secured to my feet. They lead me to a tightly woven plane, then ask to be used. I break the spikes from my toes and start to scrape, cut and arrange. As I work, I see a round form ahead, whispering a familiar invitation.
Russell Leng is a Canadian artist based in Vancouver. His paintings involve discovery as both method and content, using cues from other searching practices such as metal-detecting, rescue missions, and archaeological field-work. His studio practice is centered around written narratives about a lone character who surveys unfamiliar spaces as they search for, and dig up objects. These findings are then collected and preserved. As objects emerge from the fictional ground, the paintings themselves become new sites where traces are uncovered, documented, and preserved through layers of paint and other materials. Leng incorporates disparate materials such as construction chalk, silicone, or holographic foil, challenging material convention around 2-D mediums. Processes such as sanding, cutting, and collaging intentionally disrupt artistic predictability and expand on the theme of exposing forms underneath both fictional surfaces from the written text, and the physical surface of the painting. The imagery suggests spaces such as caves, topographical maps, or found arrangements of abstract forms. Representation is eschewed for the fragmentary, ambiguous, and partially revealed. Leng’s work invites the viewer to remain in a posture of investigation while inhabiting the uncertainty of their own findings within each work.
