Groanings Which Cannot Be Uttered: Reginald Sylvester II

The foundation of Sylvester II’s practice is in abstract painting, but he largely investigates process, materiality, and surface that also expands into making sculpture, drawings, and sonic compositions. In recent years, he has evolved beyond painting on traditional canvas, and is experimenting with and investigating the physical, industrial, and spiritual relationships with surfaces of rubber, steel, and aluminum—leading him to uncover a matrix of pop-culture allegories, complex material histories, and reckonings with biblical and nuclear dystopias, as well as prioritize surfaces that both physically absorb and reject paint. 

The exhibition’s title references the artist’s symbiotic relationships between his faith/scripture, and process of making/creativity: Sylvester II approaches gestural painting and the materials chosen to enact those gestures with a certain, active curiosity and that approach is a part of his artistic- and spiritual-warfare. The artist’s faith in the Holy Spirit as well as articulating the important role of one’s soul in emitting individual creativity are not mutually exclusive ideas to him. Sylvester II discusses that his work is a way to “confront heavy groaning” as a laboring through the process of making, and not merely producing, in his studio; he articulates that this groaning is a wayfinding tool to situate a foundation within his own sensibilities.

In addition to materiality, formal and spatial ‘play’ allows an organic evolution across time in Sylvester II’s series. The painting’s substrate has taken priority in recent years, and stretcher bars become exposed, becoming part of his compositions, while oxidized and patinated metal surfaces evoke the histories of gestural painting. Since his Offering series—paintings with hand-applied acrylic and debris on rubber substrates with physical, compositional cuts—made between 2021-22, and of which Offering 0 represents the nucleus of this work at the ICA, Sylvester II has been exploring the social histories of this material (the colonial history of rubber in the Congo), as well as exploring the negative forms his cuts instigated, both socially (think of 19th century slave ship diagrams) and art historically in terms of the lineage of abstract gestural painting.

On view for the first time are a grouping of intimate and automatic works from Sylvester II’s drawing practice. Collectively titled Cracks Via Sky & Earth, these 12 drawings are selected from the artist’s recent sketchbooks. Sylvester II approaches drawing as usually a morning exercise and rather automatic; he sees this as a method to strengthen his paintings, especially in his relationship to his hand’s execution of line. Cracks Via Sky & Earth are responses to looking at cracks in the cement on daily walks, to collecting imagery of willow tree branches, lightning stills from storms and fire when it ignites loose power lines.

In the ICA’s second gallery is a sound installation titled Iridescent Hymn (2023), which samples the vocals from two songs, Inner City Blues by Marvin Gaye and My Life by Mary J. Blige. Using a remixing method called Chopped and Screwed by DJ Srew of Houston, TX, Sylvester II became entranced with how these songs almost become infinitely celestial the slower they were played via deepening and stretching out their vocal pitches. He says that “I believe that these vocals in this state can in some way penetrate or reflect the presence of the soul.” We encourage you to sit with this work and allow this presence to permeate Groanings Which Cannot Be Uttered.

During the exhibition’s run, ICA Chattanooga has select copies of Sylvester II’s recent monograph, Painter’s Refuge: A Way of Life (2022) for sale, of which Rachel Waldrop, our director and curator, contributed the leading essay. Please inquire for sales to [email protected].

About the artist:
Reginald Sylvester II (b. Jacksonville, NC, 1987; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) work is held in public collections including Nasher Museum of Art, NC; Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, NC; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, MO; North Carolina Museum of Art, NC; Newark Museum of Art, NJ; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; ICA Miami, FL; Ackland Art Museum, NC; Wolverhampton Art Gallery, UK; Spazio 1, Lugano, Switzerland; and Fondazione Stelline, Milan, Italy. 

Previous group exhibitions include Sensibilities at Maximillian William, London (2023), Black Abstractionists: From Then ’til Now, curated by Dexter Wimberly at the Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX (2022), and 100 Years, Gagosian and Jeffery Deitch, Miami, FL (2022). Other recent solo exhibitions include CUTS, Maximillian William, London (2022); Feelin’ Blue, The Arts Club, London (2022); With the End in Mind, Maximillian William, London (2021); NEMESIS, Maximillian William, London (2019); and The Rise and Fall of a People, Fondazione Stelline, Milan (2017). Sylvester II is featured in Prime, London: Phaidon, 2022, a survey of contemporary art. 

Monographic publications by Sylvester II include Painter’s Refuge: A Way of Life, New York and Charlotte: Pacific and the Harvey B. Gantt Center, 2022; With the End in Mind, London and New York: InOtherWords, Maximillian William and Natchez; and NEMESIS, London: Maximillian William.