At first blush the small, colourful paintings by Yadir Quintana on show at Laroche/Joncas look like fairly straightforward colour field paintings. The compositions are uncomplicated, the artist uses pigments straight from the tube; the brush strokes either glide horizontically or vertically across the wood panel, or form circular swirls. The paint is sometimes applied using juicy wet-in-wet technique or in long, dry brush strokes. The works on paper are more organic, the amorphous markings a result of monoprinting oil stick globs directly onto the sheet.

Quintana’s work becomes much more engaging once you read the artist’s statement. The artworks which form the In Time of Silver Rain exhibition were all produced using three rules: 1) the artist only used three brushes, 2) the artist only used three kinds of brush strokes (circular brush drag, linear brush drag, back and forth hand stroke), and 3) the artist employed only three materials (silver, oil paint, wood panel). Besides these strict rules, everything else (choice of colours, composition, etc) was to be intuitive. It’s interesting to see the artworks in this context. Understanding the paintings as results of a “painting game” transforms them into objects, into documentations of a process constructed by the artist. The work is not about the painting itself, but about the act of painting. The idea of “process” is extended into each artwork: the silver pigment which is part of every painting will soon begin to tarnish and react to the chemical composition of the other pigments, making the artist’s creative process open-ended. I’m curious to see how each painting will have changed in a few years, turning the rain from shiny silver into haunting black.

Laroche/Joncas, space 410
Yadir Quintana
In Time of Silver Rain
June 15 – July 23, 2011
http://larochejoncas.com