Gerard Mossé
Set against a shadowed ground, a band of yellow glows bright against the darkness. The abstract composition recalls the gradients of Rothko set aflame, and the divine incandescence of William Blake's visions. One is reminded, too, of the uncertain monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); its vertical silhouette echoed in the painting's central form. Such visual similes, while imperfect comparisons, share a singular pursuit – that of distilling in image and object a sense of the transcendent, be it spiritual, theological, or cosmic.
b.1948, Casablanca
“I wanted a colour that was so saturated it would hit the eye as light,” Gerard Mossé says of his incandescent compositions. “I stopped thinking about colour as a name...but an unmediated, pure material.” In works of high contrast, the artist pursues luminosity “not as a metaphor but as an actual transformative act.” His is a primarily formal enquiry, a continuation of art historical engagements with light and its articulation in paint. Extending chiaroscuro into a more modernist mode, Mossé lends his light a complementary shadow that it might shine all the brighter in the darkness. His method is demanding of time and technique; a slow accumulation of tinted washes applied between layers of varnish. Once a potter, Mossé lends to his paintings the transparent lustre of fired glaze. While his compositions have shifted over time, from figuration to abstraction and then to minimalism, his singular pursuit persists – the painted image but a holding frame for the light it contains.