 Rest in Peace, 2005-06 Oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches John Newsom Allegory of Nations Mike Weiss Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of large new paintings by John Newsom. The paintings, measuring as large as 10 feet, were created in New York City over the span of the last two and a half years. John Newsom combines and arranges multiple techniques and motifs of oil painting. Using naturalism as a catalyst, along with a radical approach to formal painting, Newsom creates a dynamic global iconography that is uniquely his own. He portrays gesture initially with crude, hacked, and dashing marks upon hot palette grounds of monochromatic color, without initial composition or subtle vision. The harsh and liberated brushwork used to depict the grounds are then imprisoned by orbiting hard-edge and refined spheres of hot color which echo the initial monochrome fields. Massive chunks of oil paint with daubs of refinement are then used to orchestrate the visual bombardment of dense action scenes found in the natural order. The new paintings on view address worldly allegories diffused through natural imagery, echoing the folly of the human drama. Newsom states, "I am very aware of the fact that I am painting during a decade of war." Beyond the rigorous vocabulary of the images painted, there remains the real vocabulary of natural systems found in the natural world and the relationship to systems of painting. The entire epics taking place in the paintings are taking place on the Earth, both literally and allegorically, with images from and of the Earth. This will be John Newsom's second solo show at the Mike Weiss Gallery. His first one-person exhibition at the gallery was in 2004. His work was recently included in the exhibition "Contemporary Voice: The Contemporary American Art from Misumi Collection" at The Tottori Prefectural Museum, Tokyo, Japan. Exhibition: November 18 - December 30, 2006 Gallery hours: Tues-Sat 10am - 6pm and by appointment Mike Weiss Gallery 520 West 24th Street USA-New York, NY 10011 Telephone +1 212 691 6899 Fax +1 212 691 6877 Email info@mikeweissgallery.com www.mikeweissgallery.com |
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