Awkward x2 (Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe & Rebecca Norton) - MOCA U - MOCAtv

Painters Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe and Rebecca Norton try to make work that they can’t predict, superimposing grids in their collaborative paintings to create a third image whose existence hovers between each painter’s marks. In this unconventional artist talk, Gilbert-Rolfe and Norton discuss the various facets of their work, from conception to execution. Mapping irregular spaces onto the canvas is a way for the painters to generate an unfamiliar, yet controlled zones of movement animated by geometry. Colors are then added to the gridded spaces, releasing forces already present in the painting’s structure. Referring to the weightless movement of the animated cartoon image, Gilbert-Rolfe and Norton’s colorful collaborative paintings are full of physics: speed, mass, light, and math. Key to their process is the notion of going against expectations. As Rolfe-Norton explains,“Good art cuts across art history by not fulfilling its expectations, but instead doing something else.“