Nancy Constandelia’s paintings feature multiple present times (the present being current, immediate, or simultaneous time). Each is a procession of time, mapped by a thin veil of acrylic paint. It’s possible for Constandelia to superficially illustrate the passage of time in a single veil by painting a gradient that blends colours. Instead, the paint is allowed to dry and becomes a layer, onto which subsequent layers are accrued.
Time over time over time.
The gradient now, like time, exists in each single layer as well as across the layers. It traverses the picture plane as well as the depth of stratified acrylic veils.
Time keeps happening. Or, more precisely, times keep happening. Time is plural. In Constandelia’s paintings, we are reminded that time is multitudinous. Like time, each layer of paint represents mutability. Multiple layers multiply the possibilities of her compositions.
Constandelia’s paintings are monochromatic. Each colour seemingly points to one total time. But the monochromes fade. Each single colour is used to create a gradient. Time is now in motion, changing at a rate determined by the paint on a brush in Constandelia’s hand, which is moving. Time to dry, and then the process is repeated, inexactly. Now there are two gradated monochromes, one on top of the other. The process is repeated again. And again and again and again. Each layer of paint is thin enough to be transparent, producing a pentimento. Like light, the time-signalling layers are deliberately not opaque, contextualising rather than obstructing previous and subsequent iterations.
I’m reminded of George Brecht’s Three Lamp Events (1963):
on.
off.
lamp
off. on.
All light we perceive is from the past. This delay is most evident with starlight, which must travel many light years before it is perceived. Given time, the history of Constandelia’s paintings becomes perceptible, too. Like Brecht’s score, they map and document a series of events.
The limit of each of Constandelia’s paintings is the edge of the substrates they’re painted on. Constandelia brings this delineation – a limit – into the composition, featuring a strip of linen in the picture plane. The linen is present and active, but different to the painted areas. Here, we find a relationship between time and no-time, which might be space. The linen, like space, is where time happens: somewhere, someplace; everywhere, everyplace.
- James Gatt “half past” 2021
Nancy Constandelia is an Australian born Chinese artist based in Sydney (Gadigal). She graduated with a Master of Fine Art with Excellence in Painting from UNSW Art,Design & Architecture (UNSWADA. Formerly UNSW College of Fine Arts). She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions both in Australia and overseas including Paris,London,Hong Kong and New Zealand.
Constandelia has been a finalist in several prestigious awards including the Mosman Art Prize, the Grace Cossington Biennial Art Award, the Waverley Art Prize (won Best Abstract Painting in 2014), the Blake Prize, Fisher’s Ghost Art Prize, and the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize. Her work has been featured in various art publications including Artists Profile and Art Collector.
In 2019 she was granted a two month Studio Scholarship, by the Art Gallery of NSW, with an artist residency at the prestigious Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, France. She was also recently chosen for the highly competitive Artist in Residence program at Bundanon for 2023, granted by Bundanon Trust.
Constandelia’s work has been acquired by significant private collections both in Australia and internationally, including the Stevenson Collection and the Mindaroo Foundation.
