Don Eddy
Jack Magill’s Bourbon Jet (1981), Richard McLean. Courtesy Waddington Custot
As Don Eddy said in 1972, ‘The idea of being photographic or true to life doesn’t really interest me. It’s the references between what we know, what we see, what we think we see and what’s there, between the surface of the canvas and the illusion in the canvas.’
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Don Eddy, Emigre Winter, 2016-2017, acrylic on canvas, 48in x 44in. (Courtesy: Nancy Hoffman Gallery)
In these times, “beautiful paintings” (in the simplest terms) are already experiencing a critical comeback judging partly from the otherwise diverse press on the Whitney’s stalled Agnes Pelton show.
In this vein, an exhibition of recent paintings and a few semi- drawings on panel (2016 – 2020) by Don Eddy at Nancy Hoffman, scheduled to open just as the COVID halt ensued, is first on my list. Meanwhile, the gallery has a nice presentation online with an array of accompanying text materials and a short video (below) in which the artist emphasizes the role of individual, disparate viewers in delimiting the content of his art. Having worked with photographic sources and media from the start of his prolific career into present digital age, Eddy’s work lends to reproduction on screen. What won’t come through until you meet an Eddy picture plane in person is its immaculately compressed layers, which, upon moving close-up and back, hovers between Seurat-like pixilation and a Kodak Instamatic.
Kolaj Art: DON EDDY at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, March 19 – April 30, 2020
DON EDDY at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, March 19 – April 30, 2020
On March 19 an exhibition of new work by Don Eddy opens at Nancy Hoffman Gallery and continues through April 30. Eddy is one of the few early Photorealist painters who has taken his vision into new terrain, and has expanded his unique painting process. In the ‘70s Eddy painted the California urban landscape, focusing on cars, reflections on cars, bumpers, headlights. The subject came naturally to the son of a car body and fender shop father. The artist moved quickly from cars to storefronts to shelves filled with glassware and toys. Eddy’s work of the past four years takes him deeper into the exploration of nature, perception and life’s mysteries….
Don Eddy is featured in Kolaj Art, read the full article here
Review of Don Eddy’s exhibition in Barcelona [español]
A feature about Don Eddy’s exhibition at MEAM [español]
