L’art Brut of the Leviathan

Case Study Ship Hulls 1997-2020

Essay by Gregory P Colucci

These are but an eyeful _ badges from  pilgrimage – tokens from places where miracles occurred – postage stamps encapsulating the pride and optimism of a nation.

As illustrations, gestures from the shoulder are described. Abstract patterns upon which gestures of the seemingly uncontrolled subconscious of a colossus are recorded. This “art insolite” speaks truths about our condition.

 Upon the colors that ache like the unfolding of spring blooms, are the smears and rubbed markings, caustic pours, insatiable rot and corrosion that we inflict upon nature daily.

 Nature shrieks back.

 A narrative component is provided through scales of measure, encodings, symbols, and other elements that have been cast, stamped, and welded to the ‘prepared surface’. The record of forces endured / procured is rich with association.

 These images are not from these landlocked regions. They recall cayenne and saffron, translucent icebergs, magenta and Baltic breezes, the khaki dusty haze of Southeast Asia. Baked, they have been transformed.

 Their intoxicating beauty endures heightened through contrast and made more poignant through the assimilation of these destructive forces.

 As surfaces they have been prepared in a deliberate and purposeful manner, yet there are few clues as to why. As images, they are composed as paintings, and are records of graphic and painterly action.

 They are also about space. Not space that distances us from an object but the space of the object.

 They have no beginning or end. Like the work of Clifford Still.

 Indeed these pictures are a celebration of the organic qualities of our most synthetic materials. Their ability to be transformed, their vulnerability to forces beyond even their mighty control, is laid bare.

 In this they re-affirm our humanity –

 And then they move."