Grow'd up Wrong, 2005 polymers, collage, acrylic, oil, tape, polychromed cast plaster, on canvas on wood, 58 x 48" Michael St. John I'm a child of divorce Gimme a break Cynthia Broan Gallery is pleased to announce "I'm a child of divorce Gimme a break", featuring the work of Michael St. John and ten contemporary artists he has selected for a combined exhibition. Representing the Ashcan School of Realism, Pop and the Informal, and careers ranging from well-established to newly-emerging, each of the works selected meld his curatorial experience with his own artmaking, creating a wide, resonant world view and depth of discourse. The artists selected represent a compendium of style and content St. John considers a necessary presence for his world of inclusiveness. St. John's new series of paintings and sculpture take the invitation of Philip Guston for this exploration of a personal narrative using public iconography commemorating "A Life Lived". St. John's reference to art and artists evoke issues regarding the role of art in both personal and public life. Each piece is an all-over compendium painting with a thematic scheme seamlessly grafted onto a variety of images, objects and techniques. The pieces are arranged with formal deliberation, creating personal/public stories within American motifs of violence, celebrity and race. St. John builds the painting one thing at a time, selecting the varied materials for their individuated presence of characters and places. The connections made between the concrete and the idea create a time and space of experience, the gap between Art and Life. It is in this "gap" that St. John believes narrative possibility exists. In the painting "A Perfect World, Just Do It", Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" comes together with Gerhard Richter's "Atlas" to commemorate the passing of our values. The artist's personal photos and mementos are mixed into a grid of layered clippings of war, sex, art, innocence and societal refuse. The iconic Nike swoosh that brands the painting is seen again as a 3-D form in "Just Do It", a cast sculpture on a pedestal similarly covered in collected images, turning the piece into a 3-D version of the painting. Painting with history, both public and private, "Grow'd Up Wrong" is a painting spotted with the memories of growing up in Indiana topped off with the R from Ricki Lake, a "white trash nation" under the unrelenting grayness of a midwestern sky. St. John's sociopolitical concerns are evident in "I Need Beer", depicting a sleepless night for a homeless person camping behind a leaning door. The door leans into the painting's surface of cardboard and the tatters of a beach umbrella. "Home Alone" also depicts a night alone, but with the semi-satisfaction of television, Chinese take-out and masturbation. In his first solo exhibition in New York since 1999, Michael St. John's American story is a vast landscape of cacophonous events enveloping a history of public and private inclusiveness, "surrendering to the intoxicating effect of the metropolis and the erotics of its spectacle." Exhibition: September 8 - October 8, 2005 Gallery hours: Tues-Sat 10 am - 6 pm Cynthia Broan Gallery 546 W. 29th St. USA-New York, NY 10001 Telephone +1 212 760 0809 Fax +1 212 760 0810 Email contact@cynthiabroan.com www.cynthiabroan.com |
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