Madeline Gallucci’s work encapsulates some of the primary concerns that occupy artists of the so-called Millennial Generation. In a nutshell, these concerns can be summarized with a series of interrelated questions: Do more images even need to exist in a world that is already over-saturated with images? If the answer is yes, should one produce digital images, objects, or something else entirely, such as performance? If the answer is digital images, then how does one survive and compete in a forum that is literally “World Wide”? If one produces objects, how does one do so in a world that is so over-run by objects that they end up either choking the oceans or contributing to climate change as they decompose? Gallucci addresses these concerns by reasserting the value of art-making traditions such as color, pattern and beauty, yet there is more to her work than meets the eye.
In Tarp Pattern #1, acrylic scrawls in shades of pink, red, blue, purple and gray spread across the canvas. The forms intersect, overlap, conjoin and wrap around each other to create a shallow picture space, much in the tradition of Joan Mitchell and Willem de Kooning. Grommets march around the outside edge of the canvas, with nylon cord looping through the top grommets to suspend the work on the wall. The work resembles a colorful tarp that one might take camping, or perhaps a cheery sort of camouflage. Gallucci names camouflage patterning as an inspiration, and finds its presence in everything from nail wraps to phone cases to motorcycle paint jobs. She asserts that in these instances of appropriation, the original military function of camouflage disappears. Likewise, by placing camouflage into a new context such as an art exhibition, her playful and exuberant works can be read as a subtle undermining of militarism.
Gallucci’s academic background in printmaking comes to the fore in Blue Camo, a digital print on polyester. To create such works, she scans images from her sketchbooks and re-combines them in a variety of arrangements using a computer. She then has the final image printed commercially on fabric or vinyl such as might be used for disposable tablecloths. The experience of looking at Gallucci’s marks on such a work is therefore highly mediated, as if viewing a quotation of the marks that she paints by hand. Along the way, one is reminded of classic theoretical texts on authenticity such as Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction or perhaps Roland Barthes’ The Death of the Author.
Comparing Gallucci’s painted works like Tarp Pattern #1 with printed works like Blue Camo strikes at the heart of issues such as authenticity and consumerism. Since a painting is a unique object, the art world has traditionally assigned higher status and more monetary value to it than a print. However, a conclusion about which work has more cultural currency seems much more open-ended in the instant gratification world of rapid prototyping and on-demand printing.
– James Martin