AISLE GALLERY

424 Findlay Street (3rd Floor)

Cincinnati, Ohio 45214

RICK MALLETTE

"Wall Drawing and New Paintings"

January 11-February 16, 2008

ARTIST STATEMENT

Nearly all of my shows include a site specific temporary wall drawing.

This is my 19th since 1994. They are improvised without use of preliminary sketches, having no particular starting point, jumping around until i find a rhythm in the scale and spacing of the forms. White hi-lights are added periodically after each "round" of pencil drawing. Past wall drawings have been made with india ink , marker, invisible ink, gouache, latex, and charcoal on white, pink, and gray walls. This is my first yellow wall drawing, inspired by the post-it note.

The most obvious and recurring theme in the Wall Drawings is the search for connection and purpose. The forms can be thought of as incomplete organs seeking function by hooking up with other incomplete organs seeking the same.

Drawing is easy. Painting is hard. I paint quickly with brushes and putty knives.

The image can change dramatically many times overand a whole painting can be lost in minutes. What you see, in this show, is a collection of stopping points,

when all the elements solidify, but hold an active tension. This tension is elusive, subject to my personal taste and generally lies at that interface between opposites, such as: abstract/realistic, flatness/depth, complexity/simplicity, comic/tragic, male/female, etc.