Closing as we speak after a 4 week run, Phosphene is José Parlá’s second present at Ben Brown Advantageous Artwork’s London location. The title references the phenomenon of seeing gentle with none exterior stimulus and the exhibition options 11 massive scale canvases infused with kinetic and sensory vitality.

For a lot of, graffiti is a method to exist past the corporeal and social confinement of our present circumstances and the now Brooklyn-based artist’s Ease tag was like a visible mantra repeated throughout south Miami in quest of private perfection. His balletic hand-style continues to be a foundational component of his work however as his apply has developed it has been turned and used as a software to as a substitute create work centred upon neighborhood and society. This explicit physique of labor is the fourth and remaining in a sequence of works which have adopted Parlá’s close to deadly hospitalisation after contracting COVID-19 and there’s a robust thematic concentrate on therapeutic and rebirth. The work undoubtedly offers along with his personal private journey as he recovered from the psychological and bodily atrophy attributable to three months in a coma, nevertheless it additionally operates on a number of completely different ranges and offers with the pressing want for us as a society to rebuild our failing political, financial and societal infrastructure. As such, Parlá’s work occupies a liminal area someplace between the road and the museum, between the non-public and the communal, between life and dying. 

The exhibition’s concentrate on rebirth is underpinned by a wealthy array of inventive, scientific and civic associations throughout the canvases. Chromatically, the works share the identical fiery spectrum of colours we see when lava-flows cool to kind new land nevertheless it additionally brings to thoughts the palette employed by William Blake to depict the creation of the Earth in The Historic of Days. When it comes to their kind, the works nonetheless seem to include a refined allusion to the landscapes of Anselm Kiefer which explored the rebuilding of society – Parlá’s cursive mark-making is suggestive of the elegantly easy early cloud chamber pictures which captured anti-matter, the elusive however important constructing block of the universe. The Cuban-American artist’s calligraphy glides throughout the floor of those Phosphene works, disappearing behind one layer of acrylic solely to re-emerge from behind one other with a grace and penetration which suggests the paintbrush is passing by means of time and drawn all collectively as one newly unified presence.

Picture credit score: feralthings





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