Silverlens presents The Untamed Wall, a solo exhibition by conceptual artist and curator Gary-Ross Pastrana.

A deviation, to say the least—from the highly mutable forms of ideas and objects found in his conceptual works—are Pastrana’s collages. This series of works, done exclusively in the perfunctory manner of cutting and pasting, should serve as his envoy to the more deliberate and confined nature of wall-bound works. They act as his emissaries to the conventions of the framed image.

Working in an entirely different set of parameters and procedure, collage making as Pastrana’s other artistic preoccupation gives way to a new dimension on how his art practice can be further understood. Hence, from the corrigibility of functional objects like abandoned cars, wooden boats, residues of gold and powder in his sculptures and installations, he makes the shift to the irretrievability of cut paper and arrives at a different set of meaning. For Pastrana, it functions as an act of self-effacement rather than a revelation of a new persona.

A criterion in the development of his collages, for that matter, tries to resonate the formalist concern. There is a tendency to set an objective kind of purity, a form whose own characteristics can possibly transcend its maker’s. The surface of Pastrana’s collage seems to negate the nature where his sources are rich from—the brandishing of identities and icons—found in magazines, books, and posters from which he has derived his material.

The imagery in Pastrana’s collages has evolved into its own distinct look. Done in separate periods, the cutting and pasting has become a singular, ongoing process without any design in mind. It spawns its own narrative, cut into frames and arranged into sets. The two-dimensional pieces assume a physicality of its own, which occupy the flat surface the same way a prop would occupy a scene.

As a curator, Pastrana, from several years ago, has organized a show featuring different artists working with collage. Collage, so it seems, serves as an avenue for artists to achieve a specific effect on the page. This narrowing down into a single page, and the narrowing down of materials that can be used on that page (which most of the time, are limited to the usage of pages themselves) conveys a world within a world—a confined environment in which the artist can exert his imagination.

The pages of Gary-Ross Pastrana’s new collage set out into its own territory. From within, structures develop, edifices are erected from where they are required; in the same way spaces are left empty from where they remain vital. The growth that exists is derived solely from its internal progress. Constructions arise from where they are needed. A spot is consumed within the frame the same way a precept occupies the mind—fragmented, evolving, and necessary.