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ARTCAT



Tom Gallant, two arcs that curve in opposite senses

DCKT Contemporary (Bowery)
195 Bowery, 212-741-9955
East Village / Lower East Side
October 17 - November 15, 2009
Reception: Friday, October 16, 6 - 8 PM
Web Site


GALLANT’s works are meticulously crafted paradoxes of absent presence and are heavily subsumed by the process of removal, subtraction and fragmentation.

The exhibition title refers to the definition of an ogee, a pointed arch having on each side a reversed curve near the apex. An ogee is a form most evident in the geometry of Flamboyant Gothic rose windows and was favored by 19th century decorative arts master William Morris in the underlying structure of patterns. In GALLANT’s works, the ogee appears both literally and ontologically by bringing two motifs together through a process of removal and creating a montage contrasting fragile beauty with the obscene.

GALLANT’s cut and layered silhouettes open up the language of collage and use it as a formal device to explore the strength of negative spaces. Among the Mournful is based on a detail from a Gustave DorĂ© illustration for the Bible and is made from three sheets of paper: the first is a colored sheet, the second is cut pornographic magazine paper and the top is black cut paper. Replications of the simple folds of cloth, magnified and isolated, are seen grappling with the forms beneath them yet rest in a state of suspended animation.

GALLANT lives and works in London. Previous solo exhibitions include Museum 52 (London) and Changing Role-Move Over Gallery (Naples, Italy). GALLANT is included in the upcoming group exhibition Slash: Paper under the Knife at the Museum of Arts & Design (New York). Previous group exhibitions include Colette (Paris) and the Haifa Museum of Art (Israel).

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