ARTISTS TALKING

Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham 7 May – 29 June

In the eyes of post-modern theory, ego as the generator of meaning in art is anathema. Modernist painting has received bad press for years in this regard because of its supposed connection to self-expression, but this has sometimes seemed a sweeping generalisation. How anyway does this desirable un-willed form of apparently 'selfless' expression get into art? And when it does get in, is it ever more than arbitrary or is there an otherness that asserts itself above and beyond the material-objective? The apt juxtaposition of two exhibitions at the Angel Row Gallery – traditional Modernist practice made innovative by painter Mali Morris and 'As Long As It Takes', a group show of new procedural art – raises questions such as these whilst also clarifying some subtle, time-worn differences to be found in recent art methodologies, especially in the field of abstract painting.

Devised by Angel Row curator, Deborah Dean, 'As Long As It Takes', presents seven artists who all work with systems, ground rules and set procedures. Four painters are included, some fairly well known like Jonathan Parsons, as well as three artists working with paper.

John Plowman for example uses repetitive processes and recurring motifs. Here he has sketched countless rows of boxes on a given ten-metre scroll of white paper. Similarly Craig Staff uses controlled, repeated procedures, his white emulsion and house dust paintings are applied in endless layers onto acrylic sheet over months until the emulsion skin lifts itself off and the work is finished. Gillian Ross Kelsey's high-gloss paintings, arranged in a Judd-like series are also the result of systematic layering and like the other works here encourage a two-fold response – both aesthetic and reflective. Jonathan Parsons' Skeleton, a large-scale image of a flag looks like delicate textile but in fact has been painstakingly drawn by hand. His grid painting is fresh and colourful, free of encumbrances akin to his works included in 'Vivid' – a touring show of British and American abstract painting at NGCA in Sunderland between 12 July and 24 August – a resemblance that presumably is a sign of pertinence.

Artists in both of these shows are engaged with repetition, materiality, densities, liquidity and colour. The worlds of the conceptual and the aesthetic seem to be drawing closer but there are still fundamental differences. Mali Morris clearly allows more flexibility into her working process than the procedural artists of 'As Long As It Takes'. In her gallery talk, Anecdotal Evidence, she refers to the idea of working from the inside in a dialogue with the painting itself – how combing or scraping back, for example, might reveal a space, an unexpected quality of light, a certain poetry. Ross Kelsey also refers to working until it "feels right" but in contrast, she talks as well of "keeping going to the end" in spite of things. Generally it seems procedure can inhibit the emergence of the pictorial. Or perhaps it would be better to say that it subordinates that kind of expression from the outset, in favour of critical reflection. Ross Kelsey's works have a metallic sheen, like looking at frozen ice but there is also a resistance – the drips along the side of the panel distract the eye, encouraging consideration of process.

Morris is more singularly aesthetic. At best, her works, the culmination of three decades of abstract painting, draw the spectator into a slow, absorbing interplay of ground and form that can be curiously affecting. Large pieces, seen in the recent touring show 'Slow Burn', were especially successful. Now it appears that the smaller pieces are just as good, like Greenaround, 1998-99, or the mid-sized, Pale yellow curly clearing, 2001.

John Cornall

JOHN CORNALL

johncornall@aol.com