Brilliant Ideas Episode #10:
Ellen Gallagher

Finding balance between conception and abstraction

Propagation of meaning through repetition

The quote “A rose is a rose is a rose” repeats and reads like a play on words. What does it mean? The sentence is a form of iteration frequently employed by Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), an innovator and pioneer in American literature. It was the writer’s literary style that influenced Ellen Gallagher to reflect the ideas of repetition and replacement in her own artistic creations. Gallagher’s works Paper Cup (1996) and Pomp-Bang (2003) feature a repetition of particular features such as loosely drawn lines and low-relief.

Repetition leads to layers and accumulations, suggesting semantic diversity and open-endedness. In the 10th episode of Brilliant Ideas brought to you by Bloomberg and Hyundai, viewers are invited into the art world of Ellen Gallagher, populated by messages generated by repetition and where there are endless rows of meaning.

Brilliant Ideas Episode #10: Ellen Gallagher – Video

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Suspended between the figurative and abstract

Gallagher is an artist of biracial ethnicity, born to an Irish-American mother and an African-American father. She is often perceived as an artist whose works commonly deal with gender-identity in relation to race, but her works do not submit to confined interpretations of either gender or identity. DeLuxe (2004-2005) was a work that focused particularly on these discussions. In the work, Gallagher selected images from magazines dating from the 1930s to the 1970s aimed towards an African-American readership and filled with advertisements for beauty products such as wigs and creams. The advertisements were then recomposed into a collage. The work featured yellow plasticine clay added in the form of new hairstyles for the featured women, in an expression of African-American consumers seeking assimilation into Caucasian culture. The heterogeneous contrast of yellow plasticine upon the primarily black and white images displays a volatile identity. Considering that advertisements introduce goods under the facade that purchasing the product will improve some aspect of the consumer’s life, the collage seems to underscore the idea from the era when white culture was considered superior. However, Gallagher avoids making such overt connections in her work:

“What’s seen as political in [my] work is a kind of one-to-one reading of the signs as opposed to a more formal reading of the materials… I think people get overwhelmed by the super-signs of race. My relationship... to some of the signs in the work is very tangential. I think more repeated than that, in the work, is a kind of mutability and moodiness to the signs. And I think that’s where you can talk about race in my work. (...) Sometimes it’s hard for people who don’t make things to understand labor, joy, attention, and whimsy. But it’s in the work – I don’t think it’s something I need to explain.”
Gallagher desires that the formative elements apparent in her works be understood as abstract concepts of minimalism. Her work may reflect a certain social cultural, and political context, but she asks that those reflections be overlooked as empty shells devoid of meaning. And it is in this suspended approach to creating diverse meaning between the figurative and the abstract that she is recognized.

Painting beyond painting

Gallagher’s childhood home was in a small English town by the sea. Many of the townsfolk were poor immigrant laborers who made an arduous living. Their hard manual labor inspired her to do the same in creating her artwork. For instance, she describes her version of scrimshaw, a practice of carving or engraving on a whale bone or tusks by sailors, explaining that she would “imagine them in this overwhelming, scary expanse of sea where this kind of cutting would give a focus, a sense of being in control of something.”
Gallagher’s unique scrimshaw is created by carving into the surface of thick sheets of watercolor paper and drawing with pencil, watercolor and ink. Her scrimshaw is featured in Watery Ecstatic Series (2001), which depicts an underwater creature that appears in the Drexciya myth. The elegiac tale of Drexciya relates to children born of Africans slaves who were pushed overboard the slave ships en route to America, and conveys a deep emotional message.
Gallagher also uses a printmaking technique where she scans and reprints existing images, adding an element of handicraft and manual labor to what might have been just a painting. Unlike traditional paintings, her modified works are given multiple meanings, some layered, and some nested in their reading.

Bird in Hand (2006) was created in layers, applying pieces of printed paper, Plasticine, rough rock crystals, silver paint and gold leaf to the canvas to create a relief. The enigmatic, one-legged protagonist appears to be a dark-skinned seafarer. It could be referring to the slaves of the Cape Verde islands off the west coast of Africa, where her father was born. It might also be representative of Captain Ahab from the novel “Moby-Dick” (1851). There are many possible allusions, but the message appears to become more abstract due to the intertwining of images created from the printmaking technique. The message is layered and presented through images like those gathered from magazines such as Ebony, Our World and now-defunct Sepia, while the artwork becomes a sculpture mixed with technology, science and history. Like a dense book that requires multiple reads to understand, Gallagher presents paintings that require audiences to take different approaches, and encounter various components and meanings before finally configuring them. The hands-on technique she uses is significant beyond the apparent labor. The act of creation itself carries new stories and meaning that add greater depth to her work. It is not an easy task, to prompt open interpretation and inspire the imagination. Each person can encounter her work with their own unique perspectives, which can then be reflected in their navigation of the narrative structure, allegorical symbols and abstract forms. The source of countless stories and rich new emotions, Gallagher’s work are valuable not only in aesthetic but in experience. ■ with ARTINPOST

Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> installation view, 2004-5

Deutsche Bank Collection. ⓒ Ellen Gallagher, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich London
Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> detail, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, Frame (each): 389 x 325 x 46 mm / overall display dimensions: 2149 x 4527 mm ⓒ Tate, London Frame
Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> detail, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, Frame (each): 389 x 325 x 46 mm / overall display dimensions: 2149 x 4527 mm ⓒ Tate, London Frame
Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> detail, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, Frame (each): 389 x 325 x 46 mm / overall display dimensions: 2149 x 4527 mm ⓒ Tate, London Frame
Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> detail, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, Frame (each): 389 x 325 x 46 mm / overall display dimensions: 2149 x 4527 mm ⓒ Tate, London Frame
Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> detail, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, Frame (each): 389 x 325 x 46 mm / overall display dimensions: 2149 x 4527 mm ⓒ Tate, London Frame
Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> detail, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, Frame (each): 389 x 325 x 46 mm / overall display dimensions: 2149 x 4527 mm ⓒ Tate, London Frame
Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> detail, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, Frame (each): 389 x 325 x 46 mm / overall display dimensions: 2149 x 4527 mm ⓒ Tate, London Frame
Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> detail, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, Frame (each): 389 x 325 x 46 mm / overall display dimensions: 2149 x 4527 mm ⓒ Tate, London Frame
Ellen Gallagher, <DeLuxe> detail, 2004-5

60 works on paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, Frame (each): 389 x 325 x 46 mm / overall display dimensions: 2149 x 4527 mm ⓒ Tate, London Frame
Ellen Gallagher, <Pomp-Bang> installation view, 2003

Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Joseph and Jory Shapiro Fund by exchange and restricted gift of Sara Szold ⓒ Ellen Gallagher
Ellen Gallagher, <Preserve>, 2001

paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, 389 x 325 x 46 mm ⓒ Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Ellen Gallagher, <Ice or Salt> from <DeLuxe> (detail), 2004-5

portfolio of 60 etchings with photogravure, tattoo engraving, aquatint, silkscreen, offset lithography, collage and plasticine sculptural additions, ⓒ Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery, New York
Ellen Gallagher, <Bird in Hand> 2006

Oil, ink, paper, polymer, salt, gold leaf on canvas, 2383 x 3072 mm
Ellen Gallagher, <Oh! Sauna>, 2001
Ellen Gallagher <Watery Ecstatic>, 2005

Watercolour, ink, oil, plasticine, pencil and cut paper on paper, 77.5 x 101.6 cm Photograph: courtesy of Gagosian
Ellen Gallagher, <Preserve>, 2001

paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, 389 x 325 x 46 mm ⓒ Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Ellen Gallagher, <Preserve>, 2001

paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, 389 x 325 x 46 mm ⓒ Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Ellen Gallagher, <Preserve>, 2001

paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, 389 x 325 x 46 mm ⓒ Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Ellen Gallagher, <Preserve>, 2001

paper, etching, screenprint, lithograph with plasticine, velvet, toy eyeballs and coconut oil, 389 x 325 x 46 mm ⓒ Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Ellen Gallagher, <They Could Still Serve>, 2000

Pigment, paper and glue on linen, 120 × 96 in (304.8 × 243.8 cm) ⓒ Ellen Gallagher. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian Gallery

Profile

Ellen Gallagher, born in 1965 in the U.S, is an artist who is known for experimental, unexpected, and truly new imageries. She is has been working on the series of artworks that arrange familiar advertising images into lattice structures. Her father being African American and her mother being Caucasian, she seems to be interested in various cultural elements from race and ethnic issues. Gallagher frequently uses the image of African Americans as important motifs of her works. She adapts women’s unique hair style, wig, and images taken from fashion magazines and attaches these objects on to the image of African Americans with protruding eyes and thick lips. In each frame of the lattice structure, there are distinctive narratives, and all characters have their own features. Gallagher is often considered as the artist who deals with racial issues however, what the artist reveals and aims to present is the process of selecting and collecting materials, and creating a completely new image.

Bloomberg Brilliant Ideas Introduction