For Jeffrey Tranchell’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, he will present a range of works that take form from his use of everyday materials in an effort to explore a wealth of meaning and experience through a poverty of means. He playfully yet very strategically exploits an accessible methodology with a potential more powerful than recognized at first glance. In his paintings as well as drawings and collages, he makes marks with such varied items as used postal stamps, produce stickers, price tags, and coins. As a result these works are often adorned with records of dates, places, and objects and tend to have an innate quality of familiarity.
A series of collages such as “Olives, Greek,” “Sweetstar,” and “Christmas,” consist of the above mentioned stickers affixed to magazine clippings from popular fashion publications. Marks are made with the common adhesive labels from groceries and other daily goods, shifting the path of the viewer’s eye though the altered photographic composition or providing a subject for the model’s ambiguous gaze. Continuing to make use of what is ubiquitous and readily available, Tranchell transforms an appropriated photo-based advertisement into a compositional dialogue of various indexes. This act simply but radically alters the way we see, perceive and absorb these stylized images.
Similarly, a series of drawings, documents collections of loose change by creating pencil rubbings of the coins on newsprint. The resulting record, titled with the monetary value, such as “42 cents” calls attention to the physicality, mass production and symbolism of these often overlooked daily tools of economics, elements of our daily lives.
Tranchell’s paintings are often near monochromes, partially raw canvases or uniform vertical stripes in two colors. They at times make use of the same product stickers used in the collages, but solid coats of paint are built up until through plan or by happenstance some variation develops. The color from one canvas is carried to another by the use of the same brush or the leftover palette. They are almost never predetermined and often contain literal remnants, accruing dust and debris,of the studio where they were constructed. Their composition, like the collages and coin rubbings are both arbitrary and restricted, while his use of a casual abstraction draws attention to the processes of painting and the decisions that factor into making something unique.
More recent works, executed on small ceramic plates rather than canvas, exploit the presence of the textured, often decorative, surface of the plate in order to submit additional variables to the practice. Their display, rooted in a more domestic rather than fine art setting, is still familiar, while the article itself divulges the frugal sourcing of materials.
Also on view is a series of Polaroids from a performance titled “Still-Life Party”, a collaborative effort amongst friends and acquaintances to assemble a still-life consisting of objects brought to the site, constructed and readjusted for the sake of producing documentation. Two video works, from a series which record the artists home while he is away, run the length of their respective tapes, the duration determined by the medium. These videos have received no additional involvement from the artist other then the original placement of the camera. Tranchell’s poetic treatment of material encourages many possible avenues of experiencing his work and the world around us yet he refuses to let the viewer go away content with an easy singular answer or conclusion. The possibilities are numerous and the work remains constantly shifting while always holding our attention, never letting go.
