Cosmic Intel 2008

Curator: Welcome. We're here to consider Jack Armstrong's "Cosmic Intel" from 2008, a mixed-media piece residing in a private collection. What’s your first take? Editor: My immediate impression is controlled chaos. The energy practically vibrates off the surface. There is something incredibly frantic but also exuberant about the colors and frenetic application of impasto here. Curator: The use of acrylic and other media lends itself well to the thick, almost sculptural application. It's clearly an exercise in texture and color relationships. The eye bounces around trying to make sense of it. The use of gold is interesting here—a purely material addendum without intrinsic referent. Editor: Indeed. Though a formalist reading is apparent in the materials used, one also might interpret this through the lens of Armstrong's associations. Part of the last Five, and one must question the mythology associated with his art that moves it out of the realm of abstraction into hyper-individuality as art commodity and capitalist-driven iconoclasm. Curator: The artist’s biography definitely colors any reception of the work. Yet, focusing purely on the image, consider how Armstrong utilizes all-over composition—similar to Abstract Expressionists—where no single point dominates, disrupting traditional notions of perspective and hierarchy within the canvas. Editor: While the compositional structure suggests certain mid-century art paradigms, I still can’t shake off that biographical framework. He is both actor and instigator of his own art practice. A cult of personality and branding of his own identity seems like the most interesting contribution of this work. This brings up key questions about art commodification today. Curator: Fair enough, but observe the individual color choices – reds, blues, greens and yellows all mixed freely with impasto to create unique textures. It certainly makes one wonder where he finds these distinct color combinations from the world around him and attempts to recreate them here. The gold disrupts our reception of color theory entirely. Editor: True, in effect the painting functions as a Rorschach test then? It is fascinating how the painting and process encourages these contrasting yet equally relevant analyses. I leave thinking of how abstraction can still be deployed as a potent, yet subjective and individualizing visual language. Curator: It does provide that double-sided mirror effect, does it not? As our gaze wanders away from this impasto chaos and the cultural context, one sees how even apparent non-referential abstraction can be intensely bound by external, sociopolitical meaning.