NYAH ISABEL CORNISH | COMPLETE INDECISIONS

Galerie Rolando Anselmi is delighted to announce the first exhibition of Nyah Isabel Cornish in its gallery space. Cornish is a pure painter, therefore she uses the classical terms which belongs to the traditional vocabulary of painting: saturation and desaturation of the matter, concentration or rarefaction of the signs, chromatic paths, design phase and improvisation. In her paintings, a series of pictorial happenings and possible variables result in what seems to be the chosen snapshots in an infinite composition trail. At a time where attention for image is at its minimum, Cornish slows down her way of looking and scrutinizes every inch of her painted space. This allows her paintings to evolve at a pace uncommon to most of the image 
production. In this way, her work examines how abstract painting has evolved alongside digital and screen-based life; battling with constant visual stimuli, ready-made images and the expectation of instant access and immediate gratification. Cornish's works begin with no preconceived idea of the finished image. Some paintings find their initial influence in the forms and compositions found in 17th Century Dutch floral still lives, but other paintings are the direct consequence of an analysis of her painting itself. Taking her cues from paintings rather than photographs or digital images, allows her to explore the decisions of painters before her, to see things with a reduced speed. The act of making slow decisions as the paintings unfold is critical to the way Cornish constructs her images. There are elements of chance at play followed by careful consideration and subsequent vital additions, with focus on the interplay of form, color, line and depth. However, the painting never really ends and is open to edits, as Cornish’s process uncovers new compositional pathways.  "I begin a painting with a series of mistakes. The painting comes out of the correction of mistakes by feeling. I begin with shapes and colours which are not related internally, nor to the outside world… The final picture is the process arrested at the moment when what I was looking for flashes into view. My pictures have layers of mistakes buried in them – an X-ray would disclose crimes – layers of consciousness, of willing." - Robert Motherwell.