Especially in an era of infinite variability, the mirror motif can get pretty tired pretty fast, whether as a means of solving abstract compositional problems or finding meaning in figurative relationships. In his latest series of mounted, translucent, usually backlit painting-drawings, Nikolas Soren Goodich avoids the tropes and clichés by diving right into the middle of them and restoring aesthetic and humanistic meaning to them. Most if not all the works on display pose specific conceptual instances of twinning and mirroring, but they also embody an overarching conditional sense of duality—duality suspended in but also resolved by dialectical dynamics.

Wings of Desire II – Side A and B, 2021.

Not surprisingly, Goodich’s assured hand, at once that of a painter and a draftsman, is an integral tool in the fashioning as well as the laying out of his discourse (or, you could even say, message). The tensile strength of his line is enhanced by the luminous—even luminized—palette Goodich employs. (Most of the works tend to a high-chroma monochrome; the few multicolor pieces fairly explode on the wall.) The repeated paths the lines take, build up pentimenti or find themselves otherwise visually sandwiched, giving them a visual kinesis that harks back to some of the most previously successful mirror-image artworks—Bruce Nauman’s early neon pieces. But Nauman regarded these as language, while Goodich concerns himself with image—image too intricate in form and in context to flatten into Naumanian high-voltage messaging. Goodich invests each piece with a different message or facet of message—and at the same time diminishes the centrality of his iconography so that any and all images can be regarded as mysterious and alluring, and mute.

Gallery 169
169 W Channel Rd
Santa Monica, Ca 90402
ends Jan 11, 2024