M55 Art is pleased to present “endangered gestures”, an exhibition of recent works by Randee Silv, on view April 2 through April 18, 2009. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, April 4th from 5 till 8 p.m. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 12 till 6 p.m.

With this most recent group of paintings, Silv brings our attention back to the very origins of painting while exposing the roots of our visual culture. These pieces are distinct in that they consider the process of image-making in a way that is both current and extraordinarily old.

In “The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art,” David Lewis-Williams compares the controversial abstract marks in Upper Paleolithic cave paintings with entoptic forms that have been documented during altered states of consciousness. These zig-zags, dots, meandering lines and nested curves are what we all see on the edge of our vision.

It is within these most primordial moments, before these flickering forms congeal into recognizable imagery, that Silv finds parallels with her own work. She asks us, in viewing these paintings, to consider whether the concept of art may have been initially triggered by abstract rather than iconic imagery. And if we acknowledge this, these endangered marks could widen our dialogue with the transitional potentiality of abstract gesture.