Courtesy: the artist and Fox Jensen McCrory, Auckland.

In measure of., any last traces of Geoff Thornley‘s austere formalism have been cast aside.

A softer sliding grid remains and moves across the picture plane, but its geometry is less overtly structural, more organic and certainly doesn’t feel imposed. Indeed the grid feels like a lattice of shadows – simultaneously veiling and altering the tone of the pigments, revealing the body of the painting perhaps more than ever before. In this sense it remains functional but subject to a more visceral sensibility Thus the tooth of the linen is more evident.

Where the properties of the weave might’ve previously been sublimated by the accumulation of pigment, in measure of., we can sense – almost hear the progress of the brush across the surface – a contest between the pigment and the linen, between openness and resistance.

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