2009 A * C ODYSSEY

Dionisia Salas Hammer

March 27th - May 2nd 2009 | CCAS Goman

My paintings are underpinned by my curiosity about the physical process of environmental deterioration. I aim to capture an atmosphere of cacophony, implosion, explosion and movement, as though time and geology might be sped up or slowed down and then stopped. Using photography and documentary films as stimuli I investigate abstract painting in terms of colour, light and speed in a similar way to how film and photography might explore movement, silence or sound. Reconstructing geological formations of earthis my access point into the material qualities of abstract painting such as colour, tonality, transparency, opacity, texture, control and application of paint. My work moves between the organic potential of painting, the slippery, fluid nature of paint, and a controlled, viscous surface of clearly defined line and edge. Correspondingly I conceptually bring together inconsistent environmental qualities, for example what appears solid and permanent, and parallel these with the transient, ephemeral plasticityof paint . These paintings are explorations of control and intention, perfection and imperfection, concerted rules and chance. (Dionisia Salas Hammer, 2009)

Image: Dionisia Salas Hammer, Graft, 2008, oil on canvas