“Concepts, Ideas, Inventions” at Nancy Hoffman Gallery

May 31-July 3, 2003

This is to let you know that the next exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery is entitled ”Concepts, Ideas, Inventions” including work by Mark Depman, Remy Hysbergue,
Susan Norrie, Frank Owen, Richard Purdy and Yuko Shiraishi.  The exhibition opens
on Saturday, May 31st and continues through Thursday, July 3rd.

Each of the artists in the exhibition bases her/his work in an idea that drives the
image, conception and creation of the work.  In Depman’s new Cibachrome prints, a large photograph (taken by the artist) functions as background, backdrop and atmos-phere for each of his mise-en-scene works.  Whether a wintry view of Guilford Green,
or a sunset captured from a nearby parking lot, the “backdrop” images set the tone.  Like a curtain rising on the stage, the larger image in the upper half of the photo reveals Depman’s unique “still lifes”: objects in his home arranged on tabletops or mantelpieces.  Not unlike altarpieces, these include photographs, snapshots, watercolors, a butter
dish, a computer—the stuff of daily life becomes sacred through Depman’s intimate observation.

For Hysbergue the “concept” is the medium itself, the artist’s exploration of the possibilities of paint and its relation to the surface he chooses, white Komacel PVC panels.  The white of the panel seems to emit light. The white is a constant tying the artist’s series together. Sometimes the artist uses a trowel to apply paint in somber monochromatic tones, at others he squeegees on a riot of kinetic colors, shocking pink, phosphorescent orange, in intense shapes, balancing them with the restraint of a pale pastel horizon line at the bottom of the panel.  In his paintings he is looking for the visual connections that join contemporary art to painting, cinema, new graphic design and fashion of this century.

In the mid-‘90s Susan Norrie painted her first recipe painting included in an exhibition inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni’s film “l’Avventura.”  Embedded in this heavily encrusted black oil painting is a recipe for fly paper stenciled into its glossy surface, the words appearing to be stuck to the canvas like flies.  Her two most recent works relate
to an installation entitled “Passenger” that the artist is creating for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia.  The project deals with the artist’s on-going concern for the human condition, survival and environmental catastrophes.  The texts
of the new “recipe” paintings address moths and mosquito larvae.  As with all of Norrie’s works, there is a double meaning, moths and mosquitoes are both ephemeral and deadly.  Like the flypaper recipe, the letters of her new recipes are trapped in the paint, in its luscious surface, like flies and moths would be should they be caught in a limpid pool. 

Frank Owen has always been concerned with “authentic mark making” in his paintings.  His recent works investigate what the artist calls ‘the question of uniqueness and multiplicity.”  Over the years, Owen has invented many unique painting techniques.
In the ‘70s he experimented with making molds of massive paint strokes.  In the new works he “draws” into a piece of polyethylene, creating a bas relief-like surface on the canvas of skeining, whirling, interweaving lines.  He then paints into the resultant negative surface of the canvas.  By creating a drawing in polyethylene he can use again, should he choose, he can probe the possibilities of similarity and change in works of the same scale.  Owen says: “I am entranced by the states of Rembrandt’s 100 guilder print.  I am interested in exhaustion and replenish-ment.”  Using this technique he has the luxury of a sculptor who can cast multiple pieces from a mold, or a printmaker who can pull many examples of a print from a plate. 

Rick Purdy’s new encaustic paintings are inspired by Steven Wolfram’s book. “A New Kind of Science.”  Using Wolfram’s theory of cellular automata, he creates works based on “Wolfram Sets.”  Purdy explains these sets as follows: “Cellular automata are grid- based formations defined by a ‘Rule’ that determines the identity of each element.  If the first row of nine squares has a blue square in its center, the computer will choose the color of the first open cell in the next row by checking the colors immediately above and always leaving the first and last squares white.  The ‘Rule’ in this situation specifies blue if the upper three are white, thus all squares become blue in row two.  A binary number can express the ‘Rule’ as well, which yields 255 possible combinations.  Incredibly, a small percentage produces a chaotic result.  One wouldn’t think that possible from an operation so similar to throwing dice.”  With or without the “rules of the game” Purdy’s encaustics provide a visually exciting and stimulating experience if one does not know the rules of the game.

Color is concept, subject, and object in Yuko Shiraishi’s quiet, meditative paintings.  One’s perception of red is forever altered having seen Shiraishi’s installaton, Red
Deference; two paintings wrap a corner and leave a glow in the viewer’s eye.  The
colors of day are different as one leaves the heat of Red Deference.  Experiences are crystallized through color, applied thinly layer upon layer, sometimes dark on light,
at others light on dark.  There is always a trace of the earlier color visible in a thin line, around a square, or at an edge.  In her new paintings, a rectangle of one color subtly vibrates in a field of another color, creating a dialogue that one cannot help but think
is inspired by nature and natural phenomenon.

For additional information and/or visuals, please contact Nancy Hoffman Gallery
at 212-966-6676.

Gallery summer hours:  July, Tuesday through Saturday 10am-5pm; August, Monday through Friday 10am-5pm.