LATEST BODY OF WORK
In the Company of Paintings
Art without its environment is only half alive.
Isolated, they are just sentimental objects and pictures but through the art of both painting and design, I believe they start living in the space.
This exhibition is built on that conviction. The installation of the paintings and their objects is an exercise in experience design, attentive to sightlines, to how you move through the room, to how light shifts across surfaces, and to how one painting changes when paired with another, or how the meaning of a subject on canvas bends when set beside a chair, a glass, or a rug. The aim is immersion, convincing you that everything in the room belongs to the same world, including yourself.
I hoped to extend that immersion through the dimensionality of the pieces. The first level of engagement lies in the framed works (or those that suggest frames), flat and varied in style, including several made in collaboration with my friend Will Mathison.
The second level meets you directly: characters whose eyes seem to follow you, or who break the wall to interact with you. The third level bypasses you entirely and turn instead toward each other. And the latter two regard the framed works as art within their own environment, just as you do.
The objects and style of painting throughout the exhibition reassemble fragments of history, echoing the Roaring Twenties. The objects lend atmosphere to the room, and the paintings animate it. I consider the objects not background props but part of the composition itself. They are able to be purchased in companion with the paintings as works for this immersive environment that carry with them the breath of this environment.
Much of the credit for that design and the curation of objects belongs to Zach Barney. The furniture, the placement, the atmosphere that makes the room breathe is his art. His eye ensures the environment carries the same intention as the canvases. Together, because of his incredible eye and design mind, the art and design blur into one continuous composition.
Step beyond the curtains and you enter an exhibition of things not meant for decoration or display alone, but a living world that lingers. Here, you are in the company of paintings.