Heaven
Paul Kneale
March 28 - April 14, 2023
Easily Perfect all your memories, 2023
Ink on canvas
78 x 58 in (198.1 x 147.3 cm)
COUNTY is pleased to present Heaven, a solo exhibition by Paul Kneale.
Paul Kneale’s abstract digital paintings are the result of his intentional, artistic misuses of flatbed scanners, which he collects. Kneale leaves his scanner lids open, facing an empty ceiling, and performs successive low-res and ultra-high-res scans of “nothing.” Because some of these scans take over an hour to complete, they end up capturing the changing atmospheric and lighting conditions in his studio. They also tend to overload the machines’ internal processors, leading to wildly unnatural color outputs and moiré effects from what he calls “the ragged edge of the visual zone.”
Kneale’s digital scans represent complex interpretive processes that are much more akin to abstract painting than photography. As he explains, “There’s no forensic trace of light like there is burned into an old piece of film. If film photography is like cutting and keeping a lock of someones hair, then all digital images are like commissioning a hollywood costume designer to create a wig, carefully crafted to look like what you remember that person’s hair to look like. Its a simulation, a stageplay.”
In Heaven, Kneale considers the metaphysical implications of his practice. If taken ironically, the exhibition offers a critique of the utopian dreams promoted by techno-futurists and by fashion brands that trade on aspirational consumer desires. “Heaven is a lot of things,” he says. “It’s a concept. It’s a commodity, a threat, a carrot on a stick, an escape plan, the reason people built the pyramids and the Vatican. It’s a new clothing line by Marc Jacobs. It’s kind of everything and nothing at the same time.” False promises of transcendence are everywhere today, Kneale says, even in soaps called “ocean breeze” that smell like toxic chemicals. Such denatured experiences are emblematic of what he terms “the new abject,” and they inform his aesthetic, from the ultra-saturated lavender hues of Easily Perfect All Your Memories to the rainbow-colored glitch effects of Do You Want to Come Over and Shoot Content.
Although the notion of transcendence has become debased in consumer culture, there is an inherent beauty to Kneale’s work that pushes against his own critique, and the way he questions the nature of representation places him philosophically in the company of Rothko and other mid-century abstract artists who were deeply invested in the concept of the sublime. “I think all the questions posed by that work are still relevant,” he says. “I just do it with contemporary tools.” Is Kneale’s work a simulation of transcendence or a means to transcend the simulation? Depending on one’s perspective, Heaven may not be ironic at all but a fully attainable aesthetic experience.
Paul Kneale received his MFA in 2011 from the Slade School of Fine Art. Recent solo and group exhibitions include: High Anxiety, Rubell Family Collection, Miami; Project 1049, Curated by Paul Kneale and Raphael Hefti, Gstaad; Moscow International Biennale for Young Art; Michael Armitage, Paul Kneale and Tabor Robak, ARTUNER at Palazzo Capris, Turin; Free Software, Import Gallery, Berlin; New Abject Launch, David Roberts Foundation, London; SEO & Co., Tank TV, London (2014); Pleasure Principles, Fondation Galeries Lafayette, Paris; /b/ random, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Young London, V22 Gallery, London. He has taught at the Zurich University of Art and has contributed theoretical articles to leading publications such as Frieze and Spike, and has recently explored the potential of leading artist-organized projects with Fondation Galeries Lafayette and LUMA Foundation. Kneale’s works are also included in the Rubell Collection, LVH collection, and Versace.
Logan R. Beitmen