From Ian Pedigo’s review of “Brian Buckley: Uncertainty” for ArtPyre:
Brian Buckley’s second solo show at the gallery presents more than a dozen framed images that pair cephalopodic forms with classical narratives and mythologies. These wet photograms are made by mixing solutions of light-sensitive chemicals and water-based paints and then placing objects on or near the prepared paper before exposing them to light. Due to their fluid quality, the images appear ghostly and watery—a quality most suitable for capturing images of creatures hailing from beneath the tides.
The octopus forms here are swirling, stretched, and streaming out like ribbons. Yet they appear like surrogates for the body as well. On one hand, their organic shapes might suggest entrails, but on the other, as the artist states in a video made in advance of the show, “. . .as humans, we believe we came from the water, we are water.” There is a sense of the image extending into the viewer’s realm of experience, of floating in the sea surrounding the subject, much in the same way one imagines each work being created.
Browse the exhibition “Uncertainty” at ClampArt
Browse all of Brian Buckley’s work at ClampArt