Graham Gillmore

TEXT ART

My roommate and her friend came up with a couple of provocative one-liners to drop into a conversation whenever they'd lost track of it or needed to escape it. One was "Whose pants are these?" and the other was "This changes everything" (with emphasis to be added to one of the three words, as needed). Similar such one-liners appear throughout Vancouver artist Graham Gillmore's "miniretrospective" of 10 works at Lincart, including in the large-scale painting This Changes Everything. Carved into wood paneling is a long quote from Federico Fellini's 1963 film 81/2, about a filmmaker who is under the gun — yet uninspired — to produce his next movie. The didactic quote begins, "The main problem is your painting lacks a fundamental idea," and it ends with "I made some notes but I doubt they will be of much help to you." The artist has inserted his own name (though misspelling it as Gilmore), as if the quote had been addressed to him — suggesting that he has, in fact, heard variations on it. My love for you will never die is an obsessive seven-foot-high incantation against forgetting: The title's words repeat in various permutations across the canvas, the letters choked and boxed in. Like a sound emitting from a nearby room, other words emerge and fade, and you begin to see that between the high-pitched whine of "My love for you will never die" is the strangled confession "Next time I'll break every bone in your body." And hanging on the wall opposite it? A small work on paper with drippy lettering that says, "I'm sorry you're having problems." Also on view in Lincart's front room: drawings by Christopher Pottruff. (Katie Kurtz)

GRAHAM GILLMORE Through April 22, Tues.–Sat., noon–6 p.m. and by appt.

Lincart 1632 C Market, SF. (415) 503-1981, www.lincart.com