Chronogram - Review of Patina

"Patina": Works by Anthony Chase at Hawk + Hive in Andes

August 3-September 1. Opening on Saturday, August 3 from 2-6pm

The continuity between lime plaster and cinema may not be evident to most, but to artist Anthony Chase—a filmmaker-turned-craftsman-turned-painter—the process of plaster has undeniably cinematic resonance. The paintings in Chase’s show “Patina” (on view at Hawk + Hive gallery in Andes and at Chase’s Delhi studio August 3 through September 1) offer layers of plaster colored with earth pigments and marble dust, troweled, combed, shaped, smoothed, and polished. The South African-born artist describes these pieces as “unfinished film scripts” that communicate their stories through the medium of texture.

The abstract compositions that make up “Patina” put forth a deceptively simple beauty. In Rendezvous, yellow and white cup-shaped forms overlap each other suggestively; in Nova, black-tinted plaster grounds a planetary disc, burnished to an ebony shine. Underlying the seeming austerity of these pieces, however, is the sensibility of an artist with a lifelong fascination with spaces and the stories they tell. After growing up in Cape Town, Chase traveled widely, moving to New York City in 1983. Along the way, he developed an affinity for old walls, from the adobe walls of Swaziland to city walls in Vietnam to lime plaster walls in Umbria. The witness borne by these walls—the way the passage of time is visible on their surfaces—stayed with the artist.