James Geccelli – Recent Paintings and Works on Paper

“Strictly speaking, there are no elements of painting in Geccelli’s pictures. What could count as the most basic building block always proves to be undivided, changeable, instable. Geccelli’s work begins before simplicity, since what is visible is not yet separated and hence not yet brought back together… The line no longer bears witness exclusively to perception, but also to bodily movement… The line is therefore not elementary, but instead a phenomenon of indifference that only afterwards branches into what is seen and what is drawn, into the visual and the corporeal. It is similarly the case with the ground. Therefore, it is much too simple to presume that the ground is a given and stable entity. Without doubt, the painter first levels out and primes the picture medium, but he also paints over the colour lines again with white, to such an extent that their graphical and coloration effects are more or less strongly muted. For Geccelli, then, establishing a ground not only means preparing a surface for the drawing; it is equally important that the drawing can again sink into this ground. The foundation of painting is also its veil… and we also sense the risk of neutralisation associated with the use of this colour. It is precisely this risk that Geccelli seeks: For it alone also allows a new picture to be painted.” (Ralph Ubl, University of Chicago)

O.T. 2014

O.T. 2014