Carl Fudge Camouflaged "Carl Fudge has a method of information shredding and recombination that enables him to make paintings that have an original look.... He has created an open system of working that moves his content past any tired considerations of painting as some kind of vocabulary grab-bag." (Michael Brennan, Art Net) Carl Fudge will exhibit several new series of paintings at the Feldman Gallery. The paintings, based on the digitization of motifs from Warhol's "Camouflage" paintings and Japanese erotic prints, retain only a trace of their source. Derived from an elaborate process that combines computer technology and traditional media, their hybrid compositions blur the distinctions between the aura of an original object and its reproduction. Fudge creates a new pictorial vocabulary based on the interplay of chance and calculation. Masking and concealing is a pervasive theme for Fudge who, in previous work, has deconstructed representational images based on Durer's "Resurrection", contemporary Japanese robot warriors, and female images from adult manga (comic books) and anime. His new series, "Camouflage", is a departure in that Fudge begins with a source that is itself abstract, paralleling Warhol's foray into "pure" abstraction. He reworks these camouflage patterns, which are abstractions of nature, into kaleidoscopic patterns that fluctuate between materiality and virtuality. In the "Camouflage" series, Fudge synthesizes another group of paintings, characterized by a black silhouette centered on a monochrome ground. These paintings mimic Rorschach inkblot tests, originally designed to analyze a patient's responses and to establish a stream of associations. Fudge plays with a Johnsian punning of foreground and background, in which images can be read as a black form on a colored ground or vice versa with equal ease. The effect is to incorporate the idea of change and engage the viewer as participant. In a sense, Fudge has camouflaged Warhol, the master of silkscreen painting. In the "Overflow" works, Fudge rethinks a former subject, the Ukiyo-e Shunga. The paintings, with nearly identical compositions to one another, depict dense and delicate silk-screened lines, white space, and hand-painted color. These boldly dramatic paintings constitute a shift away from the elaborate detail of Fudge's earlier work into an art of assured scale and rhythm. Originally from London, Carl Fudge has lived and worked in New York City for thirteen years. He has most recently had solo exhibitions at The Print Center, Philadelphia; the Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard in Paris; and Deutsche Bank in New York. Group exhibitions include "Surface Tension", the Chelsea Art Museum; "Patterns and Grids", Pace Prints; as well as shows at the art galleries of the University of Wisconsin; Arcadia University, Pennsylvania; and the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston. Fudge teaches at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and Columbia University in New York. Exhibition: October 14 - November 12, 2005 Gallery hours: Tues-sat 10 am - 6 pm Ronald Feldmann Fine Art 31 Mercer Street USA-New York, NY 10013 Telephone +1 212 226-3232 Fax +1 212 941-1536 Email info@feldmangallery.com www.feldmangallery.com |
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