Little Gravities 

Before we were birds, we were weavers, bone-setters.

Before we were birds, we traveled a threshold.

This is a turning point: a tiny forming.

This is a clear light, a feather,

an open vessel, a heart,

stacking stones,

stacking cells,

a breath

a shadow

a balance.

This is an origin story.

 

-A.S., 2025

Timothy Hawkinson Gallery is pleased to present Little Gravities, Alise Spinella’s newest abstract paintings and her second solo exhibition with the gallery. In this body of work we witness the moment after dissolution, after coming apart, when something new is forming from fragments of the past. Dust stitching together, microcosms connecting into pattern, fragile elements layering in delicate, tenuous balance. The intimate moment of a being gathering into being.

The tiny, coalescing entities of these paintings float in airy bardo as they take shape. Spinella shares, “This work echoes the narrative arc of descent mythology, with each group of paintings describing a different stage of life-death-life. In this iteration, we’re moving from below ground back toward the sky, between darkness and light.”

A blush-toned ground swirls with dotted color, while a blocky column of ink-green sits at the edge, nearly sliding off the canvas in “Wingspan”. Lines stream toward the dark form, as if pulled into its weighty orbit. The luminous white backgrounds and warm palettes of pinks and reds all contain small slices of night, portals to another place. In “Clear Stone (Talon)”, staccato marks ripple in concentric circles, like waves on a strange, periwinkle lake. A lined pillar of radiant blues emerges with an almost animal presence. All the work has an internal logic, yet the rules remain mysterious; gestures appear and disappear behind hazy veils, foregrounds flicker into backgrounds, repeating lines curve in dialogue, and shapes sit atop with trompe-l’oeil precision.