New York, Rubenstein/ Diacono Gallery, Dan Walsh and Scott Grodesky, 12 December, 1992 - 23 January, 1993
Catalogue Essay
Dan Walsh's homogeneous, non-figurative oeuvre of large-scale geometric compositions draws upon the extensive visual vocabularly of Minimal art. From afar, the low-slung, monumentally horizontal paintings are reminiscent of Ad Reinhardt's subliminal plaids or Sol LeWitt's optical illusions, yet up close Walsh's thin tints, dry primaries and inconsistent hand drawn lines and shapes throw out any formal/minimalist associations. The present lot, a colourless canvas from 1992, typifies the artist's early fascination with resolutely geometric pared-down compositions of black lines on white backgrounds. Like an algorithmic blueprint, the notion of endless expansion is suggested by a repetition of grid lines stacked on top of each other and which appear to advance and recede simultaneously creating the optical illusion of gravity and weightlessness. 'Walsh pipes subversive representational tropes and associative color schema into the rarefied air of purist abstarction- tactics employed by other contemporary hard edged painters, such as Gary Hume and Clay Ketter. However, Walsh's paintings manage to avoid the forensic coldness often associated with such manoeuvers. It's as if decaying tones from the first chords of abstraction, struck in the dawing years of the 20th century, gain in harmonic sweetness as they pass through time and resonate in these canvases.' (R. Boyce, Dan Walsh, in Art in America, July, 2003)