350 Words: Gabriel Dawe at Peel Gallery

by Joshua Fischer October 22, 2011

Gabriel Dawe, image by Shao Lin Hon Slyworks Photography, courtsey PEEL

In his site-specific installation Plexus No. 9, Gabriel Dawe layers a subtly shifting palette of rainbow-colored thread with mind-boggling precision. Stretched from floor to ceiling and nearly wall-to-wall in the gallery space, each color begins at a distinct point on the floor and then fans out in a series of lines to create overlapping, upside down triangles. Dawe loops the thread through hooks to repeat forms behind one another, creating spatial depth and intricacy. It’s almost as if one of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings of dense cross hatching has been plugged into a computer program, pulled into three dimensions and pushed from primary to hypercolor. Strongly lit from the front, the threads’ edges feather and blur into one another to become beautifully indiscriminate, deep pools of color. Like a prism, the color smoothly fades, twists and bends from yellow to red to purple to green and back to yellow as you move around the installation. When looked at from the side, the installation morphs into something akin to a hard-edged abstraction with crisply delineated bands of color. Is it a drawing? A painting? A sculpture? It’s an installation, and it brings all three together in such an elegant way that it doesn’t matter. Regardless of what we want to call it, I couldn’t stop circling and staring at the lush, hypnotic, enveloping web. Catch it at Peel Gallery through October 31st.

Gabriel Dawe, image by Shao Lin Hon Slyworks Photography, courtesy PEEL

Gabriel Dawe, image by Shao Lin Hon Slyworks Photography, courtsey PEEL

Gabriel Dawe: Plexus No. 9
Peel Gallery
Through October 31

Joshua Fischer works as the assistant curator at Rice University Art Gallery. He graduated from Trinity University where he double majored in Studio Art and Sociology. He then received an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

4 comments

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4 comments

Ricardo Paniagua October 27, 2011 - 15:49

Great to have so much of his work sprouting from the fertile grounds of Texas. Super Deluxery! Great work primo!

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Carolyn Boll October 27, 2011 - 16:30

Love Gab’s work and love the precision in the writer’s description of the piece as well! Nicely do e the both of you:))

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Sarah Schultz October 30, 2011 - 10:49

Great piece, Josh!

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Caroline Cole November 10, 2011 - 14:09

Wow Josh, I guess I am going to have to come and see this in person.

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