A.S.I Canadian

Rooted in the post minimalism movement of New York in the 1970s, A.S.I.’s recent work consists of abstracted ‘nets’ set against fields of color with a matte finish. A.S.I.’s main influences are American artist Brice Marden and Irish-born painter Sean Scully. Brice Marden’s 1990s oil and encaustic works take charge, paintings such as The Muses (1993) inspire the artist's use of all-over mark making and reintroducing the same pattern over the initial graphite renderings to give the work a sense of depth and motion. His reduced color palette and commitment to black, white and earth tones is reminiscent of Sean Scully’s works on paper of the 1980s. Works such as #21 (1980) fit into the minimalist aesthetic and bring focus to the composition of the work itself instead of the importance of color.

Pole I & II (Ode to Newman) by A.S.I. are directly influence by Barnett Newman’s work of the late 1940s –1950s. The slender, 6 x 48 inch ‘Poles’ are similar to Newman’s work The Promise (1949). Being very mindful of the panel’s interaction with the surrounding space and their form, A.S.I. is concerned with how objects interact with one another, joining the likes of Ellsworth Kelly and Robert Mangold in their application of size and form to their compositions. The use of cradled wood panels separates the artwork from the wall and allows the artist to experiment with unexpected forms, made up of multiple panels attached to one another.