When You are Down and Out: Elsewhere Series Painting

Tim Hemington’s series of paintings entitled “Elsewhere” reflects his long-term inquiry into the relationship of two contrasting events or actions, that are manifested in the finished works and occupy an “in between” space: one that is usually associated with other media. This specific interest provided an anchor for the content of his previous series entitled “Paradox”, which was shown in his solo exhibition at Hino Gallery in Tokyo in 2017. It could be said that “Paradox” was generated from a balanced equation of binary oppositions: such as the predictable and the unpredictable, the intentional and the unintentional, and order and chaos. Whereas “Elsewhere” has been created by the artist’s focus on boundaries and provides a further step into these undefined areas. In regard to the paintings, this “in between” that Hemington is continuously exploring, is a dividing point between abstraction and figuration, and perhaps illusion and facticity, but it also includes a sense of memory, time and existence that the artist has become more conscious of through his familiar experiences in recent years. Hemington’s work exposes the difficulties when attempting to define boundaries but, at the same time, suggests that we are all ultimately living and able to live despite the impossibility of any existential absolutes. Many of the works are produced by hanging a main vertical panel on the wall and placing an accompanying panel on the floor, then applying a different number of applications of splattered thin oil paint from a fixed position, or conversely in the darker works, by applying thinners to remove the grounds. They are installed in the exhibition in the same way as they were produced in the studio. These accumulated splashed or thrown applications allow an emergence on the canvas that suggests both temporariness and continuousness of memory or time, and Hemington attempts to visualize the undefinable “in betweeness” of two things by using a monochromatic light and dark palette, that gives the viewer a sense of a yin and yang relationship, which is practically inseparable. The physical scale of the panels reflects an average human scale. The wall panel invokes a feeling of a door or entrance while the floor panel suggests a step, and this creates a physical dynamic between the viewer and the work. The viewer should feel a sense of physical relationship with the space and the works and should perceive the works as portholes perhaps: a lure into “Elsewhere” that could be “in between.” In this instance, the paintings that had existed as subjects turn into objects and create an installation like space. Misuzu Yamamoto, Director, Hino Gallery, Tokyo