THE 59TH VENICE ART BIENNALE | SURFACE DESIGN

Eleni Kyriacou

Apr 9, 2023

There were many splendid works in this Biennale that explored surface design. As a fashion designer seeing these works immediately made me imagine the art as prints on fabrics. These works ranged from colourful, layered compositions, to designs made up of ‘pixel’ like units to op-art designs. Yet, they were not always completely flat, these surfaces were sometimes built into a texture or projected outright into the third dimension.

One of the artists I am referring to is Jadé Fadojutimi, whose layered, luminously colourful, abstract arrangements are both dazzling and uplifting conveying a wonderful sense of movement.

Jade Fadojutimi, Hear my cry

Another artist whose work I loved was Jacqueline Humphries. Her works have an astonishing effect. From afar they are a beautiful abstract play on chiaroscuro, they remind one of a print (the mostly grisaille reminding me of newspaper print) or something digital (perhaps a blurred photograph). As you move closer to the work, it transforms in the same way that a sculpture transforms as you move around it. In this sense the work is a “2-dimensional” sculpture, or I suppose one could call it a relief, or a relief painting. But unlike a classic relief sculpture, this work completely transforms relating to scale as you move closer. You aren’t simply zooming in on something you have already seen, your visual field is completely transforming seeing a different artwork every step you move closer.

So, in a sense this artist has created an art medium of her own, one that I can’t remember seeing being done so successfully before. In the case of both artworks as I moved closer, I discovered that set again a canvas of areas of mildly coloured wash (or grisaille wash) were pixelated elements in the form of dots, crosses, hyphens and so on. I assume printed or stamped on the canvas in some way in a thick body of paint. The individual symbol-like components reminded me of text or digital coding of some sort. The work made up of dots reminded me conceptually of impressionist pointillism, and so one could interpret these works as digital age pointillism.

Jacqueline Humphrise, xxx*x, 2019

The work of Tishan Hsu incorporated op-art surface patterns with effects of the third dimension and distortion, which again delved into the digital age. I have always loved op-art and love the concept incorporated into fashion, as digital print for example.

Tishan Hsu, Breath 7, 2022

Ficre Ghebreyesus, City with a River Running Trough, 2011

Another miraculous piece was a ceramic work by Skuja Braden of the Lithuania pavilion. This piece was both sculpture and relief, based around a loose structure of square tiles, where the ceramic tiles appeared to come to life, exploding out of their grid. Sprawling across the wall of tiles was an explosive surface design exploring a rich visual theme in multi-colour and where at points the somewhat “flat” wall projects into the third dimension, the juxtaposition of themes was humourous, imaginative and inventive.