Post by joshualinergallery on Nov 11, 2008 9:31:45 GMT -8
Kris Kuksi
Imminent Utopia
November 22–December 20, 2008
Opening reception, Gallery I: Saturday, November 22, 6–9 PM
New York, NY November 4, 2008 -- Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present Imminent Utopia, an exhibition of new mixed-media sculptural works by the Kansas-based artist Kris Kuksi.
Constructed from pop-culture effluvia—such as model kits, injection-molded toy soldiers and animals, plastic skulls, knick-knack figurines, and mechanical parts—these intricate assemblages combine mass-produced “junk” into rococo tableaux. At once grand and grotesque, these friezelike works register from a distance as architectural ornamentation from the Belle Époque. Up close, the agglomerations of macabre parts take on a Bosch-style chaos, with skulls, skeletons, and other gnarled forms compressed into a dark tangle.
The visual tension between ornate beauty and horrific excess has broad resonance for Kuksi, who strives to merge a nostalgia for “old world” aesthetics and a distaste for contemporary culture into his art. Greek gods mingle with monsters amid a miniature landscape of scaffolding, train tracks, refineries, and plumbing, all resembling decorative bric-a-brac in their combined, tiny form.
This strategy of combination and baroque display is the gesture that transforms the artist’s assemblages into elegant, even lyrical presentations. Among the twelve works on display, the centerpiece of the show is a 6-x-11-foot, wall-mounted sculpture entitled Imminent Utopia. This “Gesamtkunstwerk” depicts a two-sided universe, world and underworld, each balancing the other in a mirrored relationship of sculptural forms, the upper half crowned by a cathedrallike structure. Close in, one sees a plastic landscape populated by classical statuary, wooly mammoths, and construction cranes. It’s a universe of the mind, the existential toolbox from which civilizations both rise and collapse.
Kris Kuksi "Venus Admiring Mars' Gun"
Pat Rocha
Departure
November 22–December 20, 2008
Opening reception, Gallery II: Saturday, November 22, 6–9 PM
New York, NY November 4, 2008 -- Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present Departure, an exhibition of new paintings by the Missouri-based artist Pat Rocha. Departure is Rocha’s debut solo exhibition in New York.
Across this series of twelve oil-on-canvas paintings, Rocha presents a realist vision of Midwestern rural and small-town life, yet one tinged with nostalgia, spiritualism, ghosts, and the skewed perspective of childhood. His richly scumbled oils collapse multiple time frames into a single lush image, often expressing a wistful humor. Rocha uses a trompe l’oeil technique of blurred backgrounds and fine-edged, foregrounded figures to suggest a “cut and paste” reality. The picture plane is a surface on which to manipulate memory and desire-Rocha’s painterly form of wish fulfillment.
Departure, the painting that gives the show its title, depicts three figures from successive generations, each distinguished by the era of their clothing. Though gathered in the same forest locale, each figure appears to exist in a different dimension—the old man sharp and clearly lit, the young woman transparent and barely there, the older woman in sepia, like an old photograph. These shifting styles of representation overlay Rocha’s visual narratives with mystery and embody the artist’s interest in nostalgia, the supernatural, and the surreal.
Other works depict a range of Midwestern experience, from a typical 1950s den in Jet Set to the hardscrabble, prairie existence of Kansas Death Trip. In all, Rocha draws on vivid childhood memories, including haunted houses, devastating tornadoes, and growing up with ten siblings, most of whom practice artmaking in some form.
As the artist notes, “My interest in human nature and the drama of living compels me to paint. Sometimes when I’m looking at an old photograph, I’ll stare at the person in the photo and imagine myself in the same room. It’s impossible for me to paint a portrait without having a story to tell behind it. When the story hits me, I’ll look for additional pictures to accommodate the central theme. Then the painting begins to take on a life of its own.”
Joshua Liner Gallery
548 W 28th Street 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
Imminent Utopia
November 22–December 20, 2008
Opening reception, Gallery I: Saturday, November 22, 6–9 PM
New York, NY November 4, 2008 -- Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present Imminent Utopia, an exhibition of new mixed-media sculptural works by the Kansas-based artist Kris Kuksi.
Constructed from pop-culture effluvia—such as model kits, injection-molded toy soldiers and animals, plastic skulls, knick-knack figurines, and mechanical parts—these intricate assemblages combine mass-produced “junk” into rococo tableaux. At once grand and grotesque, these friezelike works register from a distance as architectural ornamentation from the Belle Époque. Up close, the agglomerations of macabre parts take on a Bosch-style chaos, with skulls, skeletons, and other gnarled forms compressed into a dark tangle.
The visual tension between ornate beauty and horrific excess has broad resonance for Kuksi, who strives to merge a nostalgia for “old world” aesthetics and a distaste for contemporary culture into his art. Greek gods mingle with monsters amid a miniature landscape of scaffolding, train tracks, refineries, and plumbing, all resembling decorative bric-a-brac in their combined, tiny form.
This strategy of combination and baroque display is the gesture that transforms the artist’s assemblages into elegant, even lyrical presentations. Among the twelve works on display, the centerpiece of the show is a 6-x-11-foot, wall-mounted sculpture entitled Imminent Utopia. This “Gesamtkunstwerk” depicts a two-sided universe, world and underworld, each balancing the other in a mirrored relationship of sculptural forms, the upper half crowned by a cathedrallike structure. Close in, one sees a plastic landscape populated by classical statuary, wooly mammoths, and construction cranes. It’s a universe of the mind, the existential toolbox from which civilizations both rise and collapse.
Kris Kuksi "Venus Admiring Mars' Gun"
Pat Rocha
Departure
November 22–December 20, 2008
Opening reception, Gallery II: Saturday, November 22, 6–9 PM
New York, NY November 4, 2008 -- Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present Departure, an exhibition of new paintings by the Missouri-based artist Pat Rocha. Departure is Rocha’s debut solo exhibition in New York.
Across this series of twelve oil-on-canvas paintings, Rocha presents a realist vision of Midwestern rural and small-town life, yet one tinged with nostalgia, spiritualism, ghosts, and the skewed perspective of childhood. His richly scumbled oils collapse multiple time frames into a single lush image, often expressing a wistful humor. Rocha uses a trompe l’oeil technique of blurred backgrounds and fine-edged, foregrounded figures to suggest a “cut and paste” reality. The picture plane is a surface on which to manipulate memory and desire-Rocha’s painterly form of wish fulfillment.
Departure, the painting that gives the show its title, depicts three figures from successive generations, each distinguished by the era of their clothing. Though gathered in the same forest locale, each figure appears to exist in a different dimension—the old man sharp and clearly lit, the young woman transparent and barely there, the older woman in sepia, like an old photograph. These shifting styles of representation overlay Rocha’s visual narratives with mystery and embody the artist’s interest in nostalgia, the supernatural, and the surreal.
Other works depict a range of Midwestern experience, from a typical 1950s den in Jet Set to the hardscrabble, prairie existence of Kansas Death Trip. In all, Rocha draws on vivid childhood memories, including haunted houses, devastating tornadoes, and growing up with ten siblings, most of whom practice artmaking in some form.
As the artist notes, “My interest in human nature and the drama of living compels me to paint. Sometimes when I’m looking at an old photograph, I’ll stare at the person in the photo and imagine myself in the same room. It’s impossible for me to paint a portrait without having a story to tell behind it. When the story hits me, I’ll look for additional pictures to accommodate the central theme. Then the painting begins to take on a life of its own.”
Joshua Liner Gallery
548 W 28th Street 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
