Wolfgang Paalen and Alice Rahon | Worlds Gone and to Come

"Painting is the adventure into an inner space which cannot be measured by yardsticks nor light years. A space where thought travels faster than light, where the nearest is also the farthest, where the smallest sea-shell curves are as meaningful as the galactic spiral and the eye of the mind at once beholds worlds gone and to come." — Wolfgang Paalen, Dynaton (1951) Gallery Wendi Norris is proud to present rarely seen paintings and works on paper by Wolfgang Paalen and Alice Rahon, marking the first time their oeuvre has been presented together in a two-person show. Husband and wife from 1934 to 1947, Paalen and Rahon charted artistic paths that were simultaneously deeply rooted in Surrealism and charged by their own singular visions. Alice Rahon (1904, Chenecey-Buillon, France – 1987, Mexico City, Mexico) would come to embody the promise of Surrealism, transforming her background as a celebrated poet into a visual language that turned canvases into luminous, textured topographies of poetic incantation. Wolfgang Paalen (1905, Vienna, Austria – 1959, Taxco, Mexico)—hailed as the "philosopher of the possible"—in turn represented the movement's theoretical evolution, an artist who made significant contributions to the Surrealist movement in the 1930s before co-founding the Dynaton movement in the late 1940s in the San Francisco Bay Area in an effort to move beyond Surrealism's dogmas. Through a selection of works ranging from Paalen's innovative fumage technique—a mode of automatic image-making he described as "dictation by candle"—to Rahon's sand-infused, sedimentary paintings, the exhibition underscores these artists' enduring significance. These works demonstrate how Paalen and Rahon did not merely document their surroundings, but utilized their art as a form of artistic excavation, revealing and unearthing forms, color, and cosmic energies.