Canaday Gallery, 25th May–4th July 2010

Informed by conventional methods of collage, Cristina Silaghi’s contemporary interpretation of the accumulative process represent a very contradictory ‘organised spontaneity’. The elements of collage adopt a sculptural nature of building and layering ‘foreign’ objects, to cultivate a hybrid of contextual objects which re-establish themselves back into a two dimensional surface. As with collage artists before her, Silaghi also endeavors to explore the limits of this concept of pictorial ‘flatness’.

Questioning and redefining ideas about contemporary abstract art, Silaghi’s work is the result of a type of ‘process painting’, where the method of construction plays the primary role in the result. Silaghi employs a number steps in her production method, from applying paint directly to the canvas, which gives clean unsullied colours, to introducing her ‘collage paint’ which has been made away from the canvas and left to acquire it’s own shape, mass, colour and surface as it dries in self cultivating fragments. These pieces of ‘collage paint’ are made from synthetic polymers which support Silaghi’s approach to making work as they adhere to stretched fabric, accumulate mass when used in layers, but are also able to retain a delicacy similar to watercolour if required.

Depending on the shape and consistency of these ‘collage paint’ pieces, Silaghi categorises them into sections such as ‘brushstroke, line or plane’ for either immediate use or stored for those waiting to find their canvas. What is interesting to note, is that unlike her collage predecessors, who would incorporate materials such as paper, sand and cardboard, Silaghi introduces a new response to common approaches of both painting and collage, by utilising layer upon layer the same material – paint.

Silaghi’s method of ‘organised spontaneity’ is given life by taking these pre-made paint fragments, which can at times change shape and recombine during their ‘waiting time’ - which is something she embraces as bringing a chance element to her work. The artist then works with the fragments to investigate a number of compositional possibilities by shifting and rotating them around the canvas before committing to any given arrangement. The result of juxtaposed layers of directly applied and ‘collage paint’ record the actions of the artist and depict the succession of intuitive decisions she has made and foster a dialogue between colour, process and contemporary abstraction.

Informed by conventional methods of collage, Cristina Silaghi’s contemporary interpretation of the accumulative process represent a very contradictory ‘organised spontaneity’. The elements of collage adopt a sculptural nature of building and layering ‘foreign’ objects, to cultivate a hybrid of contextual objects which re-establish themselves back into a two dimensional surface. As with collage artists before her, Silaghi also endeavors to explore the limits of this concept of pictorial ‘flatness’.

Questioning and redefining ideas about contemporary abstract art, Silaghi’s work is the result of a type of ‘process painting’, where the method of construction plays the primary role in the result. Silaghi employs a number steps in her production method, from applying paint directly to the canvas, which gives clean unsullied colours, to introducing her ‘collage paint’ which has been made away from the canvas and left to acquire it’s own shape, mass, colour and surface as it dries in self cultivating fragments. These pieces of ‘collage paint’ are made from synthetic polymers which support Silaghi’s approach to making work as they adhere to stretched fabric, accumulate mass when used in layers, but are also able to retain a delicacy similar to watercolour if required.

Depending on the shape and consistency of these ‘collage paint’ pieces, Silaghi categorises them into sections such as ‘brushstroke, line or plane’ for either immediate use or stored for those waiting to find their canvas. What is interesting to note, is that unlike her collage predecessors, who would incorporate materials such as paper, sand and cardboard, Silaghi introduces a new response to common approaches of both painting and collage, by utilising layer upon layer the same material – paint.

Silaghi’s method of ‘organised spontaneity’ is given life by taking these pre-made paint fragments, which can at times change shape and recombine during their ‘waiting time’ - which is something she embraces as bringing a chance element to her work. The artist then works with the fragments to investigate a number of compositional possibilities by shifting and rotating them around the canvas before committing to any given arrangement. The result of juxtaposed layers of directly applied and ‘collage paint’ record the actions of the artist and depict the succession of intuitive decisions she has made and foster a dialogue between colour, process and contemporary abstraction.

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