Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, currently presents Parataxis, an exhibition of new paintings by Grace Weaver.

Depicted in domestic interiors, Weaver’s tall, sloping protagonists animate the small ceremonies of everyday life. Solitary figures and couples sit on low and high-backed chairs, hold amphorae, gather around tables, or raise a glass.

Behind them, coloured stripes hint at panelled walls or doorways – abstract notations of domestic interiority that dissolve into painterly fields. These familiar scenes unfold with the measured cadence of ritual. Yet this ceremonial gravity is continually unsettled by a dry formal humour.

Bodies are compressed, elongated, or made to obey archaic pictorial logic: two legs merge into one in profile, heads become near-perfect circles, and torsos mirror the shape of vessels.

While the support is painstakingly prepared through successive layers of paint, Weaver’s final images are formed within a single wet plane, allowing figure, ground and colour to emerge simultaneously. Bright primaries and unexpected chromatic juxtapositions – including cobalt blues inspired by Mycenaean frescoes – are brushed, stained, and erased into the same open field so that colour appears woven into, rather than laid upon, the surface.

Each composition unfolds as a sequence of painterly decisions. In the largest works, Weaver paints from left to right, allowing vertical zips and broad, bristling brushstrokes to emerge across the canvas like writing on a scroll.

The exhibition title, Parataxis, derives from the Greek verb paratassō, meaning ‘to place side by side’ or ‘to draw up in battle order’. The paintings operate similarly, compressing bodies and forms in a shallow pictorial field, where they appear less embedded in coherent space than inscribed across its surface. 

Here, the domestic world is distilled into a concise repertoire of forms. Lamps become simple triangles; chairs, tables and architectural elements resolve into rhythmic lines and geometric planes. Presented in symmetrical frontality or strict profile, the figures carry the composure of Mesopotamian cylinder seals and ancient reliefs, while their broad shoulders and slender torsos echo the swelling contours of the Trojan drinking vessels and double-handled amphorae that they hold.

GRACE WEAVER
PARATAXIS
Max Hetzler Gallery
Berlin, Germany
https://www.maxhetzler.com

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