A figure in black caresses a length of paper mounted on the wall with both hands. Two hands take sticks of charcoal to apply smoky curls, then lines that outline and defines first the frame of the page, then a life-size human figure. As he continues, his body seems to multiply: shadows on the wall echo the motions of the curves on the page. He adds translucent strokes of black paint, then tosses on opaque splatters in white. When he departs, what remains is an image of shadow and light, a shape of a body that dissolves into the surrounding space and seems to float above it.
Still Inspired (?) first approached Gomez for a collaborative live performance in 2018. “To make my work requires my full body in motion,” says Gomez. “That’s why I love seeing dancers reinterpret my work using their bodies. To me being in the studio is dancing as well, dancing with the work.”
The resulting process was remote and mostly asynchronous: a virtual body speaking to a virtual body. “I would supply her with videos of myself doing the movement,” says Dance. “It was mostly done through video and text back and forth. I submitted a shot list. I’d already been thinking about sleep and dreams and sleep paralysis in my own life.” Gomez’s Dreamers 2, a painting both describe as “ominous,” supplied imagery that touched off their exploration.
stillinspireddance.com and instagram.com/still.inspired. F, but donations welcome (10% of proceeds are donated to the Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund).
