{"id":3724,"date":"2020-07-02T14:39:27","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T14:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/instantloveland.com\/wp\/?p=3724"},"modified":"2020-07-02T14:39:29","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T14:39:29","slug":"john-bunker-geoff-rigden-lyricism-laughing-at-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instantloveland.com\/wp\/2020\/07\/02\/john-bunker-geoff-rigden-lyricism-laughing-at-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"John Bunker: ‘Geoff Rigden: Lyricism Laughing at itself’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Geoff Rigden, ‘Meeting with Remarkable Men’ (2005), acrylic on canvas, 41 x 41cm<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Working away from American and Canadian Late Modernism, Geoff Rigden’s paintings are wrought from a deceptively simple interplay of colour and shape. There is a playfulness<\/em> at work, but the form of visual pleasure to be had here is the byproduct of a complex and unpredictable set of ideas, challenges, moves and counter-moves. Both John McLean and Mali Morris have pushed, in their differing ways, to find the treasures <\/em><\/strong>hidden in <\/em><\/strong>radical simplifications of form that release the lyrical power of colour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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John McLean, ‘Dancer’ (2004), acrylic on canvas, 61 x 92cm\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Mali Morris, ‘Line Dance\/Crimson’ (2017), acrylic on canvas, 70 x 80cm <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rigden channels all of this, but something else as well. In Synthetic Cubism we see the world reduced to a set of signs. These severe reductions of the three-dimensional world to the two-dimensional picture plane open up endless possibilities for the continual metamorphosis of imagery; why has that man\u2019s eye socket become a shadow of a door handle as it falls over a keyhole? Here, pictorial invention, in the form of an anthropomorphic riddle, takes its cue from the real world; but Rigden has successfully absorbed cubist syntax, without becoming a slave to it. The result is a personal visual vocabulary that can express almost anything, whether that be the austerely abstract, or a heightened kind of representation built from a unique and tautly woven sign system. Like the face in the photo of a grandparent who died before you were born, Rigden\u2019s heraldic glyphs and medallions are somehow familiar yet unknowable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Geoff Rigden, ‘Ulysses’ Gaze’ (2001-08), acrylic on canvas, 35 x 51cm<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rigden has entwined disparate art-historical threads to create a unique and highly personal art that is at the same time radically im<\/em>personal. His hypnotic paintings, sculptures and constructions are fascinating and mysterious machines carrying out meticulously organised raids on good taste. Sometimes toy-like and absurd, sometimes Cycladic, totemic and allusive, Rigden’s art is always finding new ways to talk to the part of us that is hard-wired for new adventures in the visual realm, both ancient and modern. No previous experience required; no \u2018aboutery\u2019<\/em>1<\/a><\/sup>‘Aboutery’ was coined by critic David Sweet; roughly speaking, it denotes the attempt to import meaning into the work of art through linking it to a subject outside of itself.<\/span> or theoretical patter necessary; though sensitivity to the elemental strangeness of human perception preferable, if not essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Geoff Rigden, ‘Riposte’ (1977), acrylic on canvas, 103.5 x 113.5cm\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

His works are, at once, psychologically dense and materially forthright- both intense and intensely present. They operate by their own enigmatic visual rules, but still manage to define themselves with absolute sureness against the scintillating vagaries of everyday visual perception; much like the Courtauld\u2019s two Cezannes: \u2018Still Life With Plaster Cupid\u2019 <\/em>and \u2018The Card Players\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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L to R: \nPaul C\u00e9zanne, ‘Still life with Plaster Cupid’ (c.1894), oil on canvas, 71 x 57cm; ‘The Card Players’ (1892-96), oil on canvas, 60 x 73cm\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Geoff Rigden, ‘Untitled’ (2010), mixed media, 18 x 30 x 10cm<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rigden\u2019s objects and images are happy to dance expressively to simple rhythms; yet remain rigorously and gloriously aloof as they do so. This sense of exquisite distillation and refinement running counter to a mischievous <\/em><\/strong>humour, all of it anchored to the base materiality of the everyday world, reveals a restless sensibility. What sets Rigden apart from his peers is a hard-won lyricism, perfectly prepared to laugh at itself. His <\/em><\/strong>underrated visual intelligence has yet to be given the time and praise it deserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Geoff Rigden, ‘Higler’ (2004), acrylic on canvas, 35 x 40cm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n