Careening from a blotted and splattered background into what almost appeared to be real objects floating on the surface, the paintings cavort around a plethora of meanings in Max Presneill’s latest body of work titled “In Case of Emergency.” The overall sense is that forms and untangling of meaning through abstraction, gestural glyphs, and the use of collage elements from the world will build a kind of historical record or even notebook of the things past. Max Presneill has long used muscular abstraction as the fundamental vehicle through which he has described interactions with the world.

Disparate elements vie for the viewer’s attention. The overall pitch is fast and furious, careening between unrecognizable mark-making and the recognizable, like police cordoning tape and fragments of clothing. Intended as a diary of this specific moment in time, Presneill’s paintings offer a puzzling and personal glimpse into his reflections on the way in which the world is configured today. The artist manages to build a jubilant array of marks and symbols that are partial pathways to the events and things around us. One of the great joys of the abstraction is that it is not entirely referential, thus the works in this exhibition do not re-create places or people, but offer an enigmatic entry into this particular moment in time. Abstractions register — in a very personal way — the vagaries of life.

Max Presneill, MiT#132 (Panem et Circenses – magenta), (2020). Oil, acrylic, spray paint, tea, coffee, wine, motor oil, rubber, marker pen, patch, sticker, leather glove, plastic tape, metal ornament skull, on canvas. 72″ x 96″.

Take MiT #132, which features an intoxicating mix of scrambled fields of yellow and beige floating below an admixture of gestural curly cues, imported objects, and smaller symbolic elements like stars and butterflies. The tale is oblique but suffused with a sense of imminent danger. A number of the paintings in the exhibition are mounted by surveillance cameras and signs advising of the 24-hour surveillance, giving rise to the sense that Presneill has his forebodings about what happens in the case of an emergency. The urgency of the painting combined with the abstract rendering of the situations adds up to a kind of discomfort that is actually the best position to be in for the current moment in time. Paradoxically, the artworks could be viewed as a call to action.

Max Presneill
In Case of Emergency
Rio Hondo College Gallery
September 22 – October 22