REENA SPAULINGS

The cut-out rearticulates painting via a hard ‘Egyptian’ contour, allowing Reena Spaulingsto steal painting back from the window-like space of realism, Surrealism, etc. We are nowin the dimension of the code, or sign-space. Abstraction becomes a sort of figure and thefigure is like a letter that recodes space. The flattened-out, rotated, hieroglyph serves asa vehicle and support for everything else that makes the paintings paintings: colour andgesture, speed and light, chaos and kitsch, etc.

A cut-out acrobat becomes ensnared within the articulations of a rotating sign-apparatus,or perhaps leaps out and escapes. Almost a dance, almost an allegory. In the paintings, thesetwo figures combine sometimes to form an abstract monster. Using a technique inventedin Los Angeles by Albert Oehlen, Spaulings adheres these hybrid sign-creatures directly tothe wall with rubber cement, like giant stickers. Others are mounted on wooden supportsto give them a more sculptural presence in the space.