Santiago Merino: Systems of Gesture

Santiago Merino's first solo exhibition in New York City, investigating gesture and reproduction through paintings built via repeated impressions. About CC Jasper presents Systems of Gesture, Santiago Merino's first solo exhibition in New York City. Merino builds paintings through repeated impressions, allowing individual movements to establish the terms of a larger composition. His investigation of gesture and reproduction spans over two decades. Textures resemble the interference of a CRT screen. Seen through a camera, the repetitions produce a moiré effect, making a still painting appear unsettled. The resemblance to a transmitted image has a physical basis in the work. Merino's self-fabricated tools are one part of the overall process. Each action holds relatability to a manufactured "image machine" In "The capacity to consider an act as a model", red impressions bend into broad, ribbed curves. Smaller dots gather along their edges, while vertical trails extend through the composition. The repeated units remain visible even where they collect into a larger sweep. The title offers a way into the process. An act can become a model for the next act, setting a sequence in motion without determining every result. Here, gestural automation describes a rhythm sustained by the artist's movements. Pattern and repetition mimic a form of automation. Textures and imagery make it difficult to separate one application from the next. Repetition becomes a means of obscuring as well as recording. Merino's automation directly reflects each action within his process, but the final image does not necessarily reflect the gesture of painting. Across Systems of Gesture, accumulated actions never settle into a static image. Action resembles rhythms of an assembly line, but never renders to that logic. What should operate as a system continues to reveal the body performing it. Read more Toggle Painting