ROBERT REYNOLDS NEW WORK 2002-03
Abstract Paintings (Puritan mirrors), Abstract
Sculpture (machine for a Peaceable Kingdom), Fuzzy
Rainbows, Hypothetical Shadows, whatnot.
February 8th through
March 10th, 2003 - Tues-Sat 10-6, Sun 12-5
Opening reception: Saturday, February 8th, 6-8 PM
Kenny Schachter ConTEMPorary
14 Charles Lane, NYC 10014
t. 212 807-6669 f. 645-074
www.RoveTV.net schachter@mindspring.com
Hours: Tues - Sat 10-6, Sun 12-5
Between West
and Washington Streets Perry and Charles Streets
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Kenny Schachter conTEMPorary is pleased
to announce the first New York solo exhibition by
Robert Reynolds. This new installation of large-scale
paintings and sculpture continues the artist's ongoing
investigation of new visual pathways through a dialogue
with legacies of abstraction and American idealism.
Reynolds' expanding vocabulary of formal and conceptual
strategies combines disparate painting tactics with
mechanical image production, chance with logic, art
and social history with personal reminiscence.
The artist excavates visual manifestations
of American idealism and the strangeness of lived
experience, working with shadows, mirrors, rainbows,
reflection, historical residue and architectural oddities.
The work is both rigorously crafted and imbued with
a subtle, deadpan humor, making both parodic and elegiac
art historical references.
Forty-odd Abstract Paintings (Puritan
mirrors), 2002-03 is a series of round and elliptical
painted canvases on wooden supports based on computer
renderings, photographs and print advertising. These
paintings make a variety of references, engaging with
art history from Roy Lichtenstein to the Renaissance.
"It is written that the Puritans felt that the
less one saw of oneself in the mirror, the better;
and the best of all was to cast no reflection at all,
to disappear." - Sacvan Bercovitch, Puritan Images
of the American Self
Abstract Paintings (Shape and Structure/fuzzy
rainbows), 2002-03 is a series in oil paint on canvas,
on arc and rectangular shaped wood and metal supports.
They are luminous objects derived from digitally generated
drawings of rainbows. This series is built out of
the convergence of a variety of contemporaneous sources,
ranging from hippie and religious marginalia to canonical
modern work such as Stella's Protractor series, Ellsworth
Kelly's spectrum paintings, and Daniel Buren's nomadic
stripes.
One Or Two Hypothetical Shadows (slabs/digital
spumato), 2002, are large scale, freestanding paintings
of digitally generated shadows in oil paint on canvas
on wood and metal supports.
Abstract Sculpture (machine for a Peaceable
Kingdom dedicated to the dangerous radicals of the
11AM Sunday Weekly Meeting of the Society of Friends
(Quakers), Rutherford Place, NY, AKA. Sit Down/Shut-up,
AKA. The Ongoing Problem of The Relentless Approximation
of The Thing Itself, a 1:4 scale section of an anomalous
architectural element installed to facilitate reception
of The Word), 2002-03, is a free-standing, mixed-media
object constructed of wood, plaster, metal, and stones
gathered from ancient New England rock walls. It is
based on renderings the artist made from memory and
direct observation, Abstract Sculpture (machine for
a Peaceable Kingdom dedicated to the dangerous radicals
of the 11AM Sunday Weekly Meeting of the Society of
Friends (Quakers), Rutherford Place, NY, AKA. Sit
Down/Shut-up, AKA. The Ongoing Problem of The Relentless
Approximation of The Thing Itself, a 1:4 scale section
of an anomalous architectural element installed to
facilitate reception of The Word), 2002-03, is a free-standing,
mixed-media object constructed of wood, plaster, metal,
and stones gathered from ancient New England rock
walls. It is based on renderings the artist made from
memory and direct observation, after attending a Quaker
meeting in March of 2002. Entering the meeting and
glimpsing the space for the first time activated a
vivid memory of a dream in which he was peacefully
overtaken by a black granite tidal wave resembling
his paintings, referred to in the dream as "The
Jimi Hendrix Wave."
Robert Reynolds, born in Massachusetts
in 1966, lives and works in New York. He attended
The School of the Boston MFA, 1986; Brown University,
A.B.1990; The Whitney Independent Study Program in
1992-93; Senior Teaching Fellow, Harvard University
2000-02, (working with Dr. Robert Coles). His work
has previously been included in shows at The Wexner
Center, The Katonah Art Museum, Threadwaxing Space
and elsewhere.
