Items Similar to One Damn Thing After Another
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5
Adam GunnOne Damn Thing After Another2016
2016
About the Item
Messages in a Bottle
Text by Cameron Skene
“Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.” - Immanuel Kant
A recent online story in the German news outlet Deustche Welle posted a video of a boy’s lost waterproof camera which slipped off a rock on a Yorkshire, UK beach and rode the currents 800 kilometers across the North Sea, where it was found on the shore of a German island. The footage recovered from the camera (which was initially balanced on the rock while the boy and his sister played) recorded their 11-minute bout of distracted meandering in and out of the field of vision. Other figures enter and exit, pausing to contemplate the scenery until near the end of the clip, where the tide sucks the camera into the sea.
Then, the fun begins. Swirls of seaweed and ocean junk float in and out of the lens’ periphery in a muted, fleshy kaleidoscope. Ragged, half-torn shapes bunch together and break apart in the murk; recorded gurgling sounds evoke an unsteady, synesthetic reverie.
Gunn’s pieces harbor a muted, oceanic palette, possibly derived from his experience growing up on the east coast of Canada. However, the works have a more accurate purchase on still life, with more flotsam than ocean.
An improvised but disciplined approach to the base elements of each piece allows the artist to access sub-genres as varied as seaborne junk drifting across a submerged camera lens. Gunn references some of the idioms of the ‘lesser’ arts: drifting mineral and vegetal forms are denoted with a brisk painterly touch that recall more vernacular approaches like rose mauling on rounded surfaces, or reverse landscape paintings on convex glass.
Intuitively conceived and carefully constructed, the irregular, rounded substrates sport smooth concave surfaces, eliciting demi-objects that emerge and retreat like quantum particles in a field.
These kinetically engaged forms dance on the skin of the painted surface and interact with the peripheral tension of the shaped edge. In works like Wave After Wave (2016): an uprooted Christmas tree appears. In others: vegetal remnants. Furry things. Squiggly things. Smooth things. Fragments of things. Meaty bits of dashed-off paint that hover on the surface: a stand-in for other things.
In tighter works like Deep Down (2016), the figure hovers in a force field of surface and ground: a densely knit, wet disco ball of emergent forms.
The Origin of the Universe (2016), singular in its thinglessness, with its vaguely vaginal nod to Courbet, coaxes the viewer to nestle in the void of unrequited expectation.
The exhibition title, Anyplace, Anytime, for No Reason At All, is lifted from an interview with Frank Zappa, describing his compositional method, which puts an emphasis on a rigorous technical competence combined with a loose assemblage of approach. The quote finishes with, “I think with an aesthetic like that you can have a pretty good latitude for being creative”. Gunn’s transcription of that approach provides a persuasive proposal of how a painting can be an aperture into an ocean of aesthetic inventiveness.
- Creator:Adam Gunn (1977, Canadian)
- Creation Year:2016
- Dimensions:Height: 58 in (147.32 cm)Width: 60 in (152.4 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Montreal, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU4762367063
About the Seller
5.0
Vetted Seller
These experienced sellers undergo a comprehensive evaluation by our team of in-house experts.
Established in 1996
1stDibs seller since 2014
96 sales on 1stDibs
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Montreal, Canada
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 7 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- Strangely PrescientBy Jessica HoustonLocated in Montreal, QuebecJessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else? Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north. An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made. Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent. Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper...Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsOil, Wood Panel
- It’s So Quiet You Can Hear Them BreathingBy Jessica HoustonLocated in Montreal, QuebecJessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else? Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north. An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made. Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent. Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper, a rusted stove—is juxtaposed with the soft glow of a yellow circle. This continues Houston’s ongoing use of colour to question the particulars of perception. Heritage of All, White with Greed and Iron, and The Spaces we Breath, Houston’s titles read like lines of a haiku. Composed as prose, they are also confrontational, mapping out the cultural and environmental impacts of the extraction of resources in the Arctic. We witness scenes of violent decay, and yet simply carry on, like Business As Usual. In What Nations Come and Go a pale purple oval nearly fills the frame, revealing only in the very far right a simple cabin in front of a rocky incline. A similar imposing cloud of colour, this time blue, dominates the landscape in Mapped, Claimed, and Evaluated. The north is just as much an idea as it is a place, and is one that looms large in the Canadian imagination. There are few better examples than Glenn Gould...Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsOil, Wood Panel
- Where These Ways Crossed One AnotherBy Jessica HoustonLocated in Montreal, QuebecJessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else? Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north. An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made. Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent. Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper, a rusted stove—is juxtaposed with the soft glow of a yellow circle. This continues Houston’s ongoing use of colour to question the particulars of perception. Heritage of All, White with Greed and Iron, and The Spaces we Breath, Houston’s titles read like lines of a haiku. Composed as prose, they are also confrontational, mapping out the cultural and environmental impacts of the extraction of resources in the Arctic. We witness scenes of violent decay, and yet simply carry on, like Business As Usual. In What Nations Come and Go a pale purple oval nearly fills the frame, revealing only in the very far right a simple cabin in front of a rocky incline. A similar imposing cloud of colour, this time blue, dominates the landscape in Mapped, Claimed, and Evaluated. The north is just as much an idea as it is a place, and is one that looms large in the Canadian imagination. There are few better examples than Glenn Gould...Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsOil, Wood Panel
- Beneath the NightBy Jessica HoustonLocated in Montreal, QuebecJessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else? Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north. An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made. Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent. Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper, a rusted stove—is juxtaposed with the soft glow of a yellow circle. This continues Houston’s ongoing use of colour to question the particulars of perception. Heritage of All, White with Greed and Iron, and The Spaces we Breath, Houston’s titles read like lines of a haiku. Composed as prose, they are also confrontational, mapping out the cultural and environmental impacts of the extraction of resources in the Arctic. We witness scenes of violent decay, and yet simply carry on, like Business As Usual. In What Nations Come and Go a pale purple oval nearly fills the frame, revealing only in the very far right a simple cabin in front of a rocky incline. A similar imposing cloud of colour, this time blue, dominates the landscape in Mapped, Claimed, and Evaluated. The north is just as much an idea as it is a place, and is one that looms large in the Canadian imagination. There are few better examples than Glenn Gould...Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsOil, Wood Panel
- System IBy Christine NobelLocated in Montreal, QuebecChristine Nobel’s dabs & systems explores the connections, similarities and differences between the handmade and the digital. Taken from the foundation of the artist’s practice of ex...Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMixed Media, Oil, Acrylic, Wood Panel
- Breaks in the lightBy Christine NobelLocated in Montreal, QuebecIn Christine’s work, precise grid systems give both order and fluidity. Evoking a vast plane of vision and possibility, the field of horizontal and vertical lines are a foundation fo...Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsOil, Wood Panel
You May Also Like
- Accretion Yankel Contemporary painting collage abstract art work on paperBy Jacques YankelLocated in Paris, FROil paint, collage and mixed media on panel Unique work Hand-signed lower right by the artistCategory
1990s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsOil, Wood Panel
- "Birds And Bees" oil saw dust and foam on wood by Steven RehfeldBy Steven H. RehfeldLocated in Carmel, CASize: 4ft x 8ft Mixed Media: oil, saw dust and foam on wooden panel. Steven is now one of the top emerging artists in the U.S. His works are ground breaking, bold and imbued with u...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsOil, Foam, Mixed Media, Wood Panel
- After the LightingLocated in Austin, TX"After the Lightning" is an abstract painting by Rebecca Sobin executed in oil, cold wax medium, and pastel powder on a cradled wood panel; measuring 12 x 12 inches. A soothing, abs...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsWood Panel, Pigment, Wax, Oil
- Once in a Blue Moon ShellLocated in Austin, TX"Once in a Blue Moon Shell" is an abstract expressionist painting by Rebecca Sobin executed in oil, cold wax medium on a cradled wood panel; measuring 12 x ...Category
2010s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsWax, Oil, Wood Panel
- PranaLocated in Austin, TX"Prana" is an abstract expressionist painting by Rebecca Sobin executed in oil, cold wax medium, and graphite on a cradled wood panel; measuring 36 x 36 inches. Titled "Prana" the ...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsWax, Oil, Wood Panel, Graphite
- Floral MystiqueLocated in Austin, TX"Floral Mystique" is an abstract diptych painted by Rebecca Sobin in oil, cold wax medium, and pastel powder on a cradled wood panel; measuring 44 x 44 inches. Each separate panel m...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsWax, Oil, Wood Panel, Pigment
Recently Viewed
View AllMore Ways To Browse
The Thing
Good Thing
One Minute
Frank Ocean
Wood Fragment On Stand
Yorkshire Uk
Adam Field
Ocean Waves Breaking
Irregularly Shaped Art
Reverse Painted Glass Panel
The Damned
Abstract Christmas Art
Beach Boy Painting
Courbet Paintings
Junk Painting
Drift Wood Art
Abstract Still Life Bottles
Reverse Glass Painting Abstract