Yvette GELLIS

I see painting as Theatre. My work is inspired by the everyday
drama of the world all around me. Wandering through Los
Angeles, I make metaphoric recordings of my perceptions; the
stains, textures, and marks embossed into the pavement as if
recording the passing of thousands of feet until a kind of mind
map is achieved. I mentally record the visuals as if collecting
crime scene evidence. I also digitally record images to later
blow up for memory documents. The tally of information and
visuals, and the initial response to all the stimuli must be sifted
through. Finding that balance between the restraints of representation
and the vast ambiguities of abstraction is a process
in constant flux, where the formal tethers to the chaotic. My
relationship is with the visual world. How I see it ultimately is
played out viscerally. If it all goes right, the initial hit you get
with painting is presence, thus it is experiential, primal.
Further development of the work necessitates a layered
process, where my involvement can vary highly in terms of
boldness and invasiveness. While I am conscious of a historical
influence, more germane is a spiritual impulse associated with
intuition. There is something beyond the physical world where
thoughts are things. My investigation is to find meanings that
are entangled in the dynamic where the sacred and profane
co-exist.