‘‘Slow Jamz Till Midnight’’, Christina Pataialii
(Blue Oyster Art Project Space)
‘‘Slow Jamz Till Midnight’’, by Christina Pataialii, is one of two exhibitions running concurrently at Blue Oyster, with Natasha MatilaSmith’s ‘‘In the Flesh’’ in the gallery’s second space. Although this review will focus primarily on Pataialii’s exhibition, there are thematic and formal elements that link the two shows in perhaps unanticipated ways. It is difficult to do abstraction well, but Patailalii’s paintings are assured. She manages to make balance look unintentional and effortless; particularly in the large, square, stretched canvases. Balance here is code for harmony, even though a scruffy, blue, notquitesquare in the left upper corner of one painting is balanced by an interlocking form in black outline superimposed over a light grey scumble. The grey shape reaches into the blue, or the blue square encompasses the grey trunk. This interplay of weights: of colour, shape, line, and texture, creates indeterminate spaces of connection. Patailalii conjures the hyphen in inbetween. Smaller unstretched works hang from the wall like skin. They bear fleeting gestures in black line: love hearts that could be birds, vertical stripes, a possible ampersand, fluffy clouds. Pataialii maximises the adrift quality of the unstretched canvases with these lighter, conversational motifs.
These message skins are interspersed amongst the larger, square, stretched canvases as if in dialogue. Uncertain perhaps of how the listener will respond to the live shoutout over the Slow Jamz Till
Midnight airwaves.