“Putting Out Fires”

Jerami Dean Goodwin's 'Putting Out Fires' subtly explores the delineation - or lack thereof - between street and 'fine' art. A fixture on the streets, and walls, of New York, writing under the moniker 'Staino', Goodwin here refines his technique of refilling fire extinguishers with paint to create a sort of mammoth spray can.

Street artists cast a unique eye on a city; seeing obstacles, textures, and densities in a way that the layperson would simply ignore. The porosity of a concrete wall versus a brick one is taken into account - on the street, and in this show, where Goodwin thins out his paint to achieve a spectral texturality on the canvases, much as Morris Louis and the painters of the Washington School did. Pure two-dimensionality; paint soaking into the very pores of the canvas.

A 25-piece video installation in the downstairs salon turns the show inwards upon itself. Looped and processed segments of the creation of the works themselves provide a not-oft garnered glimpse into the artist's process; a sort of post-Nauman 'selfie' of actualisation. Oftentimes, the work of artists is presented to the public in fits. We see an exhibition, then another a year or two later, but nothing of the journey between those two points. Like riding the subway; one stop, darkness, another location altogether. The video installation serves to shine a light on the tunnel between points, crystallizing the artist's intention; enveloping us deeper into the realm of the exhibition.

- Byron Hawes

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"Walking On The Moon"