Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Daniel Tierney at Ping Pong Gallery (SF)

Alert: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 10/14/06.

The artist-run Ping Pong Gallery has come up with another good show. The featured artist is Dan Tierney, who has been working out the aesthetics of layering paint and painted tape on top of mainly abstract photographic images. To make the photos, he paints on large sheets of paper and then roughly assembles them into various sculptural forms to create a kind of landscape. Photographs of these assemblages are then processed via computer. The resulting images then undergo various degrees of obliteration as he applies paint and tape. One of his key aesthetic problems is to make the flat photographic surface hold its own with the more tactile materials placed on top of it. In prior viewing of his work, I thought the photographic elements tended to remain stubbornly distinct and visually flat.

This new show demonstrates progress and to some extent departures. The work has evolved notably in just a few months. In some works the obliteration of the photographic is extreme. There are issues of conservation (especially for the heavily taped pieces), but the compositions are lively.

Above is an image of a smaller work in the show. Below are three other examples. The first (quite a beauty) is also smaller; the others are in the 4' x 4' range.



Ping Pong has limited hours, but an eager willingness to be open by appointment. The location is the Dogpatch neighborhood in San Francisco. The charming co-directors are Vanessa Blaikie and Joey Piziali.

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