 It All Comes Together In The End, 2006 acrylic, oil, and spray paint on wood panel, 48 x 58 inches Jeffrey Gibson talkin' smack Samson Projects is very pleased [creamin' its jeans] to present "talkin' smack," the inaugural Boston solo exhibition of NYC-based artist Jeffrey Gibson. This, Gibson's 1st solo show with the gallery, explores issues of heritage, identity & the creation of urbanity. Control versus Determinacy. Chaos versus Structure. These new, raucous paintings are layers, veils of color and meaning rendered in oil, acrylic, alkyd & spray paint on wood panels. The obvious metamorphosis is not a process run amuck but a slow and careful shift. Gibson builds up thin layers, punctured and incomplete, like partially forgotten memories. These new works confront a hazy accretion, slowly built on the bedrock of a personal symbolism. The exterior of the works are the outermost skin below which are the varied layers built up over a long journey. Totemic figures are occasionally the base image for the work, with any semiotic message becoming increasingly fragmented and subverted as it is literally painted over. The paintings are almost destroyed and then coaxed back. The things that can't be understood in abstraction are absolute and probably codes, perhaps. Each hole and gap in the paint opens onto complex under-layers, but never back to any original image. New forms, sanded surfaces and color bury meaning and association. It's street: nature poppin' through the concrete, graffiti, shotguns through the nose, gettin' lifted in the staircases, outlines on top of abstract forms substitute bodies outlined in chalk, precious remnants strapped down for preservation hide the self conscious editing and creating, smiles like grease & fake fiendish looks askance & askew as if with/on K, a fast flow sniffin' eighths: bobbin' and weavin' to keep the strut goin', flowerpots on sills sunned by neon, snatchers in rapture, the sky resembles smack, pussy/ass hurtin' sensationalist style, sporadically smart occasions and professional insincerities replete with accidentalism. "Has the original been lost? What came first? I could be making it up, I could be sincere... can I set the context?" (Jeffrey Gibson) Jeffrey Gibson (b. 1972/Cherokee-Choctaw) received a B.F.A from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an M.A. from the Royal College of Art in London, UK. His work is currently included in "No Reservations" at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, CT. His work will be in included in "Off the Map" at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institute in NYC. He is the recipient of a Creative Capital Foundation Grant. Samson Projects will feature his work at ScopeNYC in February. Exhibition: December 1 - 30, 2006 Gallery hours: Wed-Sat 11 am - 6 pm, and by appointment Samson Projects 450 Harrison Avenue Storefront 63 USA-Boston, MA 02118 Telephone +1 617 357 7177 Fax +1 617 357 5559 Email samson@samsonprojects.com www.samsonprojects.com |
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