Encounter is pleased to announce ‘Honey in the hay, hail in the heather’, Johnny Abrahams’ (b.1979) inaugural exhibition with the gallery and in Portugal. The artist’s abstract paintings initially present as minimal explorations of form and color, yet upon closer inspection, a haptic depth emerges through their tactile materiality. Abrahams’ use of raw hessian as sensory ground, the enigmatic texture of his layered oil paint and the subtle flows created through rhythmic use of a palette knife all invite careful contemplation. In this collection of works, a chorus of subtle idiosyncrasies and painterly traces merge in captivating oscillations that bring these refined paintings to life.
For this exhibition, Abrahams has produced a considered collection of recent paintings expanding on diverse series essential to his practice. In these meditative compositions the artist works through issues of temporality and touch through an elemental and characteristically formal language. Playfully opening new spaces for reflection, at the core of this show is a poetic questioning of how time might be represented in painterly form. Moments of happening are held in liminal gaps and residues of ideas seep through multiple substrates. For Abrahams, what is left unsaid becomes as important as what is said. His paintings hum with a vital understanding that the quiet spaces between marks can make as authoritative a statement as the painterly gestures in themselves.
© Text and Photo Courtesy of Encounter, Lisboa, Photography by Photodocumenta
