“An artist’s style is, from a technical point of view, nothing other than the particular idiom in which he deploys the forms of his art. It is for this reason that the problems raised by the concept of “style” overlap with those raised by the concept of “form,” and their solutions will have much in common.” – Susan Sontag, On Style
Sontag suggests forms and their application can easily collapse one onto the other, Hope Gangloff uses form to buttress her compositional strategies. She wields the brush like a pen using small, tight strokes to convey a speed which belies the delicacy and deliberation that establish them as sites of optic pleasure. In recent years her palette has brightened and the requisite use of pattern has been taken to new heights, creating a visual narrative that triangulates the viewer in a relationship between style and subject matter.
Gangloff’s frontal, direct and focused paintings recall August Sanders approach to portraiture. The model becomes an archetype under her gaze. Subjects are platonic forms cast into the contemporary; think the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover. But more than bloodless ciphers, these individuals have a story to tell which Gangloff relays through expression, posture and textured nuanced detail. No clue is left to chance but plays a role in the bigger picture. These are psychological portraits that remain timeless depictions of a modern taxonomy, employing form as style, and style as form.
The Gallery will publish a catalogue on the occasion of the exhibition.
HOPE GANGLOFF was born in 1974 in Amityville, NY. She is a graduate of The Cooper Union School of Art and Science and has exhibited nationally, most recently in solo shows at the Broad Art Museum, MI; the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, CT and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, MO. Reviews of her work have appeared in Art in America, ARTnews, The New York Times, The Paris Review and The Village Voice among others.
