Friday, June 27, 2025

Juxtapoz Journal – Wendell Gladstone Evokes Some “Spooky Motion”

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Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles is happy to announce Spooky Motion, an exhibition of latest work by Los Angeles-based artist Wendell Gladstone. This marks the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.

Wendell Gladstone’s figurative compositions study the indescribable psychic influence of human relationships. Drawing from parts of Jungian psychology and taking inspiration from quantum physics, the artist engages quite a lot of visible types and portray strategies to conjure extraordinary scenes free from the governing ideas of actuality. With a brilliant, usually candy-colored palette layered with clear mediums that subtly reveal the varieties beneath, his work lure the viewer in to contemplate the boundless realm of the human psyche.

The work offered in Spooky Motion think about the circuitous circulate of influences and results set in movement by intimate relationships. The exhibition title cites “spooky motion at a distance,” Einstein’s incredulous quip about entanglement—the phenomenon the place distinctly unbiased subatomic particles are one way or the other tethered to one another, equally affected by exterior forces to share an similar state, even when separated by giant distances. Increasing upon Gladstone’s curiosity in figurative portray that’s directly human and alien, worldly and otherworldly, structured and fluid, Spooky Motion articulates the potential for deep connections to open to such inconceivable superpositions. 

All through the exhibition, interactions amongst figures activate a synchronous pulse that traverses by means of and past the boundaries of physics, materializing the invisible, potent power of intimacy. Because the figures’ interlace fingers, dance, wrap their limbs round one another, and, most frequently, simply barely make contact with the tip of a single finger, the area round them shifts right into a mercurial plasticity. Extra limbs inexplicably pop up from solely totally different corners of the scene. Contact lingers and evolves right into a psychic contact impervious to the boundaries of time and area.

Screenshot 2023 07 15 at 11.44.00 AM

Gladstone articulates the curious qualities of entanglement and superposition contained inside relationships by means of each the content material of the narratives, in addition to a scientific materials method. With a palette that ranges between muted and intense hues, the scenes are constantly staged within the shallow area simply past a stone facade, punctuated by a single window and the leaves and branches of a meandering tree. Gladstone reiterates this high quality of compressed depth by means of a skillful sculptural portray approach, masking and making use of intensive layers of acrylic to match the contours of mosaic, concrete, bark, pulp, hair, and material—creating bas aid from paint. Echoing the glass floor of window panes and the waxy sheen of leaves, the artist’s use of clear gel mediums additionally introduces portals for the viewer to actually see by means of one layer into the subsequent. 

The compacted, plastic depth lends itself to the peculiar narratives occupying the settings in Spooky Motion. In Dream Glider, a determine peering out from a window with darkish galactic eyes is one way or the other all over the place. A wonderfully manicured hand plucks a leaf from a department outdoors, whereas the remainder of their physique hybridizes with the masonry and helps, brick by brick, a second determine sleeping within the tree outdoors. Rendered with stylistic shifts throughout the inside, architectural, and exterior planes, the gazing determine maintains the narrative throughout three distinct dimensions. 

Whereas the chimerical Dream Glider considers the best way a meditative state can create an out-of-body expertise, the titular portray of Spooky Motion hones in on the magnetism and affect of intimacy. A pair rendered in Gladstone’s naturalistic fashion sits collectively in a tree, surrounded by heat autumn leaves. Gazing intently at her associate, the contact of the lady’s finger causes the knit of the person’s sleeve to warp out of its sample. As if their connection has lit a fuse able to reconfiguring matter, a 3rd, disembodied hand seems greedy the person’s thigh, initiating yet one more ripple within the man’s clothes. Seen from the open window behind them, a 3rd determine peaks from behind a curtain, their fingers raised as if conducting some sort of magic. Enchantment permeates the scene as every determine gazes in a distinct path.

Located between actuality and fantasy, Gladstone’s work reside in an ambiguous area the place logic and motive fall brief. His figures, held within the thrall of embrace, mirror on intimacy and connections as if bewitched by their vitality. Amidst the swirling vitality of those relationships, nevertheless, Spooky Motion additionally makes conspicuous the superimposed power of isolation. Absent the craving and eager for closeness, the bonds lose their basis. The preliminary analyses of quantum entanglement revealed physics’ paradoxical observations of matter, main physicists to conclude that science has but to supply a whole description of actuality. Spooky Motion posits that the qualities of deep relationships, too, possess an invisible power past our wits and comprehension, unveiling a psychological realm as but not possible to sq..



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