“Into the Night time Land” by Adam Gabriel Winnie is on view at eyedrum Gallery by means of August 3. (Images courtesy of eyedrum Gallery)
Atlanta-based artist Adam Gabriel Winnie’s Into the Night time Land (at eyedrum by means of August 3) attracts viewers right into a vividly imagined underworld. Mythic, psychological and deeply atmospheric, the present invitations quiet engagement and openness to thriller.
A 2023 MFA graduate of Georgia State College and BFA graduate of SCAD, Winnie works in portray, sculpture, video and sound. That is the third present in a trilogy, together with Into That Resonant Darkish (GSU, 2023) and Chthonic Passage (Whitespace, 2024), that delves into the intersections of panorama, psyche and fable. This exhibition showcases his distinctive visible language by means of large-scale oil work outlined by radical tonal restraint.
9 new work, every rendered in a strikingly slim palette of crimson and deep inexperienced, dominate the gallery area. This seemingly restricted chromatic alternative, nevertheless, belies the canvases’ wealthy visible and emotional depth. Via meticulous layering and glazing, Winnie conjures exact, dreamlike types that steadily resolve from summary crimson daubs on darkish grounds into near-photographic vistas.
A standout is the titular portray, Into the Night time Land, which depicts a male determine alone in a barren, uncanny panorama. The determine seems stripped naked and defeated — bodily and emotionally — fragile, uncovered and in quiet confrontation with the huge unknown. Executed with disciplined method, its energy stems from an atmospheric thriller, aching solitude and an imagined world realized in near-hallucinatory element.
Equally haunting are two panorama work, a diptych titled Sentinels of Cloudland, which conjure liminal terrain devoid of human presence. Based mostly on the very actual however extraordinary panorama of Cloudland Canyon in Northwest Georgia, they steadiness readability and specificity with ambiguity and thriller. Forgotten Passage and Hazel Hole, equally impressed by Georgia’s distant Pettyjohn karst cave, create an phantasm of gazing right into a hole passage within the Earth — evocative of reminiscence, loss and descent, a unique, deeper, lonelier cease on the identical mythic journey.
Not all items resonate with the identical pressure. The Self as Monad (The vulgar eye will right here be blind and most distrustful) leans too closely on overt reference; the robed determine and orb evoke mystical or philosophical weight, however the picture lacks the emotional openness and impression discovered elsewhere. Likewise, Sceach Gheal (hawthorn), with its dense associations of a barren hawthorn tree, feels constrained by mounted symbolism, providing much less room for private interpretation.
Anchoring the exhibition is a sculptural set up titled Oracle of Interior Expertise. A black reflective pool crammed with darkish ink suspends a dull beech tree — eerily nonetheless and preserved in epoxy resin. The scene suggests a ritual web site, its starkness and silence powerfully encapsulating the present’s central themes of descent and the edge between interior and outer worlds.
Ambient sound and scent additional immerse guests within the small gallery’s ambiance. A four-hour audio composition, Black Field V.2, mixes pure recordings with ghostly wartime quantity broadcasts, making a sonic surroundings suspended between presence and absence. The room can be subtly infused with geosmin, the earthy, evocative scent of rain-soaked soil.
In the end, Into the Night time Land resists straightforward resolutions or tidy narratives, as a substitute opening an area for ambiguity, introspection and emotional resonance. Its energy lies not solely in symbolic depth however in Winnie’s masterful painterly method, the surreal but exactly rendered dreamlike landscapes and the hauntingly distinctive crimson-and-green palette that suffuses the work with an otherworldly presence. For viewers prepared to have interaction with its brooding stillness, the present is a rewarding and memorable descent into the underworld — the place fable, reminiscence and the boundary between the identified and unknown intertwine.
Winnie will give an artist speak on Saturday, August 3, from 1 p.m. to three p.m. at eyedrum, a chance to listen to straight from the artist concerning the concepts and processes behind the brand new work. Into the Night time Land will stay on view at eyedrum by means of August 3.
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Andrew Alexander is an Atlanta-based author.
