May 27, 2017 - July 9, 2017

 

 

 

Figure 2: The Sense of Being at Thompson Giroux Gallery features two artists working with what it means to be human, in both form and context. Spencer Hall obscures the framework of his sculptures beneath multiple layers of plaster and paint; mute and mysterious, his pieces hint at things that are familiar but just out of reach--suggestions of bodily forms and functions, places where the inside meets the outside, the uncomfortable in-between of mortality.  Hall is also showing works on paper—drawings and etchings that explore his themes further using the flat plane.

David Paulson’s pastel drawings reach for the guts in a totally different but no less visceral way. Paulson’s early training came out of the mid-to-late century New York school of painting, and the new work here pulses with life. Paulson is willing to go where the work takes him, feeling his way into a piece and then back out again.  His gestural figures, often distorted and obscured, nevertheless suggest fully-realized, distinct selves with personal histories and inner lives—raw humanity in the midst of expressionist landscapes and swaths of pure color.

These two artists work with emotional responses to form. Hall reaches deep to turn the self inside-out and force the unseen to be visible, while Paulson navigates from the outside in--through the surroundings, past the obvious, and into the essence of being.