I had a very busy day, perhaps. I’m not sure.
With my eyes open, I would rather not begin to think.
And yet, I have often thought about it, about that feeling.
Immersed in sufficient darkness, certain moments, places, faces persist, float, absorbed by thought. Moments of déjà vu, neither remembered nor invented. A momentary balance in which nothing is lost, where everything multiplies.
Within the gallery space, the works of Ian Healy and Zack Rosebrugh resonate around this sensation. Places and faces seem already known; memory precedes the gaze, and the viewer experiences it.
In Ian Healy’s work, painting presents itself as a painted object and through the energy it can carry or transmit. The image does not narrate; it refers back. Faces, often seen from behind or captured in a state of rest, escape any psychological reading. The titles are pragmatic, such as Head, Sleeping, Study. Color and light create an atmosphere, an experience for the viewer. Recently, Ian has used members of his family in his works. Referring to his own life, he integrates into his paintings external elements such as leaves, twigs, a pencil, a fly. These elements appear organically as the painting progresses. They simultaneously reveal the outer world and the inner portrait.
Zack Rosebrugh is constantly searching for a just balance in his work. There is a back-and-forth movement of arrangements and rearrangements; he adjusts until he feels he has arrived at the best possible answer for a given subject. For Zack, this answer is often found in unexpected color palettes, a thoughtful composition, and the use of texture. His approach to conceiving a piece comes from his practice of illustration. Figures, interiors, and ordinary objects are treated as carefully assembled fragments, almost slipped onto the surface, evoking the lingering memory of the digital image.
Within each person’s perception lies a feeling of the already-there.
To look at a work and mutually share the déjà vu.
