Wesley Kimler [b. 1953: Billings, Montana]
charcoal, black gesso on paper
69 1/4 by 99 1/4 inches (frame size)
Collection of the Illinois State Museum
As part of the emergence of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940s, artists such as Jackson Pollock redefined the painter’s physical relationship with his canvas. Instead of placing his work on an easel, or even stapling it to a wall, Pollock rolled canvas onto the floor of his Long Island studio/barn and actually “entered” the painting, moving freely on and off its surface as he conducted his visual symphonies with color and line.
Whether he is making paintings or drawings, Wesley Kimler’s very physical approach to his oversized works implies a sense of the artist's presence. In this case, the lozenge-shaped gridded marks we can see are actually the artist's footprints. It seems as if Kimler has just walked off this fresh, heroically-sized drawing. Raw power emanates from his careful arrangement of charcoal, torn and pasted stiff white paper, and black gesso
As is so often the case with abstraction, spatial relationships establish a delicate balance filled with visual tension. Is this a pool of black gesso overspreading the collaged paper surface, or a pool of darkness — a metaphorical black hole where objects spin away into a shadowy universe?