Sydney Albertini: Too Close to Me

Sydney Albertini: Too Close to Me
4th July, 2024 – 31st July, 2024
TRISTAN HOARE
6 Fitzroy Square
London
W1T 5DX

Tristan Hoare is delighted to present Too Close to Me, Sydney Albertini’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. Too Close to Me presents a new body of work created by Albertini over the past two years, following a series of recent surgeries and exploring the healing process that followed. Albertini’s new Glass and Standing Woman series incorporate elements of her earlier Movement works while pushing the boundaries of the picture plane. The artist takes the viewer on a journey from the initial shock of the body malfunctioning to recovery, while immersing them in patterns of her imaginary textiles and landscapes.

During her recovery, Albertini’s return to the studio was gradual. A series of painted collages on Fabriano paper allowed Albertini to create works on a scale that her body permitted, pasting cut-out painted shapes in various configurations. Unlike her large-scale painting, this collage approach allowed Albertini the flexibility to reconfigure the composition multiple times, exploring range of motion on paper in a way that her body could not.

The exhibition’s focal point is Resting Woman, a large two-panel painting which bears Albertini’s signature patterned textiles, usually appearing to fall off the canvas, but here given structure by the resting figure; its abdomen, torso and head concealed by the jarring black and orange checkered fabric, the legs tucked and one arm resting on its stomach in a protective pose. This figure’s entire universe has become the sofa she reclines on, the fabric enveloping the whole picture plane, leaving no negative space or room to breathe.

The cherry textile is reminiscent of a summer garden, a real place that Albertini looked out on during her recovery, a physical landscape which becomes a part of her immediate surroundings in the form of the spread she rests on. This eventually evolves into the Standing Woman series, upright figures caught in various stages of undressing, throwing off the textiles that conceal them. Unlike the Resting Woman who appears enveloped by the drapery that surrounds her, the Standing Woman stands tall and strong and is in control of the textile that has been concealing her.

Albertini continues to use drapery as a character signifier, employing colours and patterns to denote various attributes of her subjects. In this body of work, Albertini builds a language of patterns, which she mixes and matches the way a musician would combine notes to create compositions.

In fact, Albertini’s new series of Glass works is inspired by the music of Philip Glass. The repetitiveness of Glass’s notes is echoed in Albertini’s use of recurring patterns, as well as the frantic and twisting movement of the compositions, reminiscent of written musical notes, or of an ECG machine recording the rhythm of a patient’s heartbeat. The works have a new intensity, as the drapery takes over the entire picture plane, leaving no room for anything else. Albertini paints this series of works with both her
hands, the way Glass would play his compositions on the piano.

The Botanicals series continue Albertini’s exploration of her fantastical imagined landscapes inspired by her travels. The vibrancy and vitality of these landscapes are a testament to Albertini’s ceaseless positivity and drive, culminating in the artist’s largest botanical landscape to date. Unlike the artist’s other multi-panelled landscapes which stretch across the wall, Albertini’s Blue/ Black Tree towers
above the viewer and completely envelopes them in fantastical, wild and, at times seemingly dangerous, flora.

Too Close to Me is a visual manifestation of Albertini’s inner world, inspired by music, memories, her physical and psychological state, and is the result of close study of sights and sounds that one often takes for granted. Albertini explores her immediate surroundings with the same care and attention which one would bestow on a new and unfamiliar environment.

Sydney Albertini: Too Close to Me opens on the 4th of July, 2024 until the 31st of July, 2024 at TRISTAN HOARE

©2024 TRISTAN HOARE