Chaos and Memory, Andres Ciccone, Quantum Oddity Gallery

The Italo-Venezuelan artist Andres Ciccone, born in Caracas in 1991 left Venezuela due to political turmoil and now lives primarily between New York and Berlin. In his new body of works created for the exhibition Chaos and Memory, Ciccone addresses themes linked to his migratory background. The title of the show alludes to the emotional implications of displacement, identity, longing and belonging.

Using mathematical precision and compositional theories such as the Golden Ratio, Ciccone renders geometric forms in saturated colours and arranges them in a way that is at once ordered and turbulent. This is particularly visible in Homenaje a Alice Aycock. The meticulously delineated forms and the precisely aligned grid are disrupted by glitches. This order and disruption is likewise evident in the work Conflicts in the Parliament where the two contrasting colours blue and red appear in violent dispute. A whirlwind of sharp-edged shapes encircles the symbolic house at the centre. Hereby Ciccone alludes to the unrest within his home country that led him to uproot his life and live between America and Europe.

The stylised form of a house features in further works such as Point of View, The Migration of the Swallows, Voices of Movement and Requiem of an Endless Debate. Reminiscent of the figurines in the board game Monopoly, they are a playful gesture to the loaded themes of home and belonging, alongside displacement and exile, that Ciccone addresses in this exhibition. In the work Point of View, Ciccone uses boldly coloured shapes as symbols for his family members. Positioning the elements within the illusionary depth of the canvas, he creates a distance or proximity to the viewer, symbolising a geographical or emotional distance to the individuals they represent. Notably, the shadows in this work, as well as Chiaroscuro, are incoherent, implying a number of different light sources and thus different points of view.

Beneath the bold colours, Ciccone has painted more delicate gestural brushstrokes in ink. These markings, which appear as indiscernible writing or as trees or shrubs, add a sense of freedom from the boundaries of geometric form. The works gain further dimension and texture through the use of different media. Gels, sand and crackling paint evoke a tactility which protrudes into the viewer’s reality.

Stylistically, Ciccone is inspired by the Op Art and Kinetic Art movements of the mid to late 20th century and has developed his unique contemporary take on geometric abstraction. For this exhibition, Ciccone has included works by the artists Agnes Martin and Alice Aycock, who have had a significant influence on his artistic practice. While Martin’s works are painted in subtle hues and have more minimal compositions, Ciccone shares her approach to order and disruption. Agnes Martin’s works are often composed of straight lines and dots that, while aligned carefully, allow for disruption to her self-imposed norm. Ciccone’s incorporation of architectural draughtsmanship, best seen in his painting Chaos and Memory, ties him to Alice Aycock. Aycock’s early sculptures in particular are concerned with architectural innovation. In her later works, Aycock creates large-scale sculptures that can be likened to whirlwinds - forms that can be found in Ciccone’s Homenaje a Alice Aycock and Conflicts in the Parliament.

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