LAURA BEARD: New Paintings (Main Gallery)
ROBERT PETTUS: 8 min. 20 sec. (Project Room)
MARTIN BRIEF: Artforum Series (Front Room)
CHERIE SAMPSON: River of Spirit of Life (New Media Room)
(Oct 31, 2008 to Nov 29, 2008)
OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31 FROM 6 TO 9 PM
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Laura Beard. This exhibition titled New Paintings shows the ways in which Laura smoothly integrates influences of painterly abstraction with a distinctly modern and inventive style.
In the Project Room, Robert Pettus is presenting a series of photographs entitled 8 min. 20 sec. Much of Pettus's work in inspired by an interest in the effects of time. He succeeds in capturing the various hues, tones, and colors that elusively shift throughout the day, change with the four seasons, and vary in response to weather conditions.
In the Front Room, Martin Brief is showing his recent work in an exhibition entitled Artforum Series. His current project is comprised of a series of drawings, each representing a single issue of ARTFORUM Magazine from September 2007 to Summer 2008. Each monthly issue contains 2,500 to 4,000 names, that he transcribed slightly larger or smaller to fit on a 10.5 square inch format (the exact format of ARTFORUM Magazine).
In the New Media Room, video artist Cherie Sampson premieres a short video titled River of Spirit of Life (ice piece). In the current video piece, the artist inserts her body into natural landscapes, placing herself in the homeland of [her] maternal ancestry. The piece, which began as a series of personal rituals, is informed by artistic themes and movements such as classicism, the nude and abstraction, minimalism, feminism, and contemporary performance practices.
Press Release (PDF)
WILLIAM GRIFFIN: Recent Paintings (Main Gallery)
PATRICIA OLYNYK: Probe (Project Room)
MARGARET ADAMS: Blindness (Front Room)
JESSICA ROGEN: Let Me Entertain You (New Media Room)
(Oct 03, 2008 to Oct 25, 2008)
William Griffin's most recent work blends the traditions of Old Masters with 21st century sensibility. He paints human figures as forms and shapes, touching and reacting in sensual gestures. By using the figure's power to express strong physical and emotional content, and by reducing the informational material, Griffin abstracts his images - much as a photographer or filmmaker crops and frames observed phenomena and concepts.
In the Project Room, Patricia Olynyk presents an exhibition of photographs created during a recent residency as a Francis Wood Fellow at the College Physicians' Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. Her work continues to investigate the often-tenuous relationships between human culture, science and nature, and frequently calls upon viewers to expand their awareness of the worlds they inhabit - whether those worlds are their own bodies or the spaces that surround them.
In the Front Room, Margaret Adams shows her recent work in an exhibition titled "Blindness". Her recent work has been inspired by the novel Blindness by José Saramago. In his novel, Saramago imagined a world gradually overwhelmed by a plague of white blindness, which was used as a metaphor for not seeing, for not being aware of one's self and one's surroundings, psychologically or philosophically.
In the New Media Room, video artist Jessica Rogen presents a single-channel video. "Let Me Entertain You" began with the idea of a reverse striptease. A partially clothed woman is proffered for the viewer's pleasure; her body language beckons invitingly as she slowly, sensuously begins to button up her shirt. The contradiction between the reality and the style of her actions taunts and criticizes the viewer, while the inherent humor of her playful tease and the ridiculousness of the result helps to cut its bite.
Press Release (PDF)
HOWARD JONES: Memory and Refraction (Main Gallery)
PETER MARCUS: Untitled 1972 (Project Room)
IAN WEAVER: Artifacts From the Black Bottom (Front Room)
NANETTE BOILEAU: White Woman (New Media Room)
(Sep 04, 2008 to Sep 27, 2008)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of sculpture by Howard Jones. This exhibition and others to follow will show how innovative and in the forefront Jones was with his work. The gallery is also pleased to announce the representation of the Estate of Howard Jones.
Howard Jones was an intensely brilliant artist and even in the rambunctious 1950s, '60s and '70s a maverick and an innovator. He was part of the Art and Technology Movement along with Nam June Paik, Le Parc, Takis, Uecker and others. He worked through various artistic phases, including abstract expressionism, op and pop, but settled finally on creating work that harnessed technology for genuinely authentic artistic ambitions. Jones' use of light and sound, separately and simultaneously, was far in advance of his time. Many works survive and they are endowed with a special aura of prophesy. The exhibition at the Bruno David Gallery brings a group of Jones' paintings and constructions that employ lights as media and metaphor. As art historian, Udo Kulterman said of his work, "Technology was never a goal for Howard Jones, it was a vehicle he used to express changing perceptions of reality in a continuously poetic and artistic manner." The work in the show is from the estate of the artist and on loan from private collections. "Memory and Refraction" runs concurrently with the concluding weeks of "Dan Flavin: Constructed Light: at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, which is located directly across the street from the Bruno David Gallery.
Howard Jones was born in Ilion, New York in 1922 and attended Syracuse University and Columbia University. He served in the U.S. Army Corps as a fighter pilot during World War II. His work was represented in the 1960s and '70s by the famous Howard Wise Gallery in New York, and is included in major public and private collections.
HOWARD JONES: Memory and Refraction, is the first exhibition in St. Louis since his passing in 1991. The exhibition includes several sculptures from private and public collections. A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Robert W. Duffy accompanies this exhibition.
Press Release (PDF)
OVER_VIEW 08
(Jul 11, 2008 to Aug 23, 2008)
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, August 1 from 6 to 9 pm
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to present its Summer Exhibition. OVER_VIEW 08 sums up the works of artists who are affiliated with Bruno David Gallery. The exhibition features a host of both local and international talent, exploring a variety of themes and ideas concerning issues such as the distinction between self and identity, reality and unreality, and humanity and technology. From escapism into the subconscious, to the very tangible exploration of materials, this exhibition of works describes art at its best: an investigation of what we observe.
OVER_VIEW 08 is a yearly exhibition that summarizes the gallerys and its artists vast array of interests and accomplishments. Work includes sculpture, installation, video, photography, paintings, and works on paper. This diverse collection assumes both abstract, representational, and highly conceptual forms.
The front room of the gallery contains three-dimensional work that explores knowledge of self, the understanding of history through surfaces, as well as the merging of organic structure with geometry. The following artists have work in the front room: Eleanor Dubinsky, Wyn Geleynse, Takashi Horisaki, Frank Schwaiger, and Thomas Sleet.
Work in the main room of the gallery is as diverse in style as it is in meaning. This work investigates the language of painterly abstraction, explores local political history, and communicates a sensual understanding of nature. Artists showing in the main room include: Ingo Baumgarten, Dickson Beall, Laura Beard, Chris Rubin de la Borbolla, Alex Couwenberg, Damon Freed, Joan Hall, Kelley Johnson, Chris Kahler, Bill Kohn, Sandra Marchewa, Peter Marcus, Robert Pettus, Daniel Raedeke, Matthew Searle, Lindsey Stouffer, Cindy Tower, and Ken Worley.
Many works on paper will be found in the project room, ranging from abstract photographs to narrative prints revolving around symbolic interpretation. Artists showing in the project room include: Margaret Adams, Elaine Blatt, Lisa K Blatt, Shawn Burkard, Bunny Burson, Carmon Colangelo, Jill Downen, Yvette Drury Dubinsky, Maya Escobar, Corey Escoto, The Fancy Christ, Kim Humphries, William Griffin, Leslie Laskey, Charles Schwall, and Aaron Sidorov.
A short video by Matthew Searle is on view in the New Media Room, which explores the effect of both nature and society upon manmade objects.
For further information and visuals, please contact the gallery.
ELAINE BLATT: Natural Phenomena (Main Gallery)
JILL DOWNEN: Hybrida Drawings (Project Room)
WYNE GELEYNSE: Kit 1A: Collected Book (Project Room)
(Jun 06, 2008 to Jul 05, 2008)
Opening Reception: Friday, June 6, from 6 to 9 pm.
ALEX COUWENBERG: Working Space (Main gallery)
SHAWN BURKARD: Over and over and over (Front room)
JILL DOWNEN: Cornerstone (New Media Room)
Project Room: CONTROLLED CHAOS: Laura Beard, Joan Hall, Kelley Johnson, Cindy Tower and Chris Kahler
(Apr 25, 2008 to May 31, 2008)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Los Angeles based painter Alex Couwenberg. Alex Couwenberg: Working Space, is his first exhibition in St. Louis. A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Peter Frank accompanies this exhibition.
For several years, Alex Couwenberg has forged a unique reputation in California by producing a distinctive body of work that is a product of his obsession with the process of painting. Born and raised in Los Angeles and Orange County, Alex Couwenberg was exposed to many of the visual elements that create the So Cal terrain. The subject matter in his work comes from a deep appreciation of the aesthetic associated with the Southern California culture.
In the Front Room, Shawn Burkard, a young artist from St. Louis is showing his recent work in an exhibition titled Over and over and over. Burkard's work has been variously described as Pop Art, because of its source from functional objects and incorporation of commercial and industrial materials; and as Minimal Art, because of its geometric forms and solid presence.
In the New Media Room, multidisciplinary artist Jill Downen premieres a short video titled Cornerstone. Downen, known for her white on white wall installations of abstracted bodily forms emerging from architecture, continues to draw on the idea that the human body shares an interdependent relationship to buildings. The three-minute video zooms in on a stack of real bricks on the artist's own body. The simple act of breathing, under the weight of building materials, captures a moment of time that is humorous, visceral, and vulnerable. While Downen's art is rooted in site-responsive installation, "Cornerstone" is a recent video project characteristic of her interdisciplinary approach to uncover new aspects of established boundaries.
In the Project Room, a grouping of paintings by Cindy Tower, Joan hall, Laura Beard, Kelley Johnson and Chris Kahler.
Press Release (PDF)
LESLIE LASKEY: WORK
(Mar 14, 2008 to Apr 19, 2008)
The current exhibition Leslie Laskey: Work is in three parts. Portraits (Front Room), Hinge (Main Gallery), Woodland Sketches (Project Room). In the New Media Room, an excerpt of the documentary "Forty-seven Views of Leslie Laskey" directed and produced by Lulu Gargiulo and David Wild. The short clip will be showing Leslie Laskey working in his studio.
In the hit-or-miss world of contemporary art, longevity in itself is a virtue. Leslie Laskey's lengthy biography can at times read like the artistic history of the 20th and 21st century. Now in his eighties, Laskey remains a working artist-and a central and engaging one at that. Longevity is one thing, but combine that with integrity and a drive to continually advance contemporary art and you have an (St. Louis) artist who has long been in our midst and deserves our admiration.
Leslie Laskey demonstrates again that working in the studio is crucial to a creative mind and longevity. His new work explores and engages us in images found in things and places. Showing us how they work, finding sensuality in surfaces and rich mystifying colors. Laskey never separates his art from its viewer as he always engages them in the process of his work.
Born in Michigan in 1921, Laskey served in a combat unit in Europe and was among the troops that landed on Omaha Beach early on 1944 D-Day. Leslie Laskey is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. Laskey studied at the Institute of Design in Chicago (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) with founder and American Bauhaus pioneer Lászlò Moholy-Nagy and Indiana University. He currently divides his time between St. Louis and Manistee, Michigan.
A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Robert W. Duffy accompanies this exhibition.
Press Release (PDF)
FOUR ACES: Large-Scale Prints from Four Universities
(Feb 01, 2008 to Mar 08, 2008)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit FOUR ACES: Large-Scale Prints from Four Universities. The works exhibited are from 48 graduate students and faculty members of Washington University in St. Louis - Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts; Louisiana State University College of Art and Design, University of Texas - Austin; and University of Wisconsin - Madison.
THOMAS SLEET: Traces
(Dec 07, 2007 to Jan 12, 2008)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit Thomas Sleet: Traces in the Main Gallery, featuring large wall relief sculptures composed of cement, natural and synthetic fiber, recycled materials, acrylic, and earth pigments.
Press Release (PDF)
CHRIS KAHLER: VIRAL
(Oct 19, 2007 to Dec 01, 2007)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit CHRIS KAHLER: VIRAL in the Main Gallery, featuring paintings that combine the role of the artist as a scientist and poet, soothsayer and oracle.
Press Release (PDF)
JOAN HALL: FROM WHENCE WE CAME
(Oct 07, 2007 to Nov 06, 2007)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit JOAN HALL: FROM WHENCE WE CAME in the main gallery, featuring large-scale, sculptural prints that are thickly layered with handmade paper, pulp, and printing ink.
Press Release (PDF)
FRANK SCHWAIGER: MYTHOLOGIES
(Jul 20, 2007 to Aug 25, 2007)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit MYTHOLOGIES by multimedia artist Frank Schwaiger.
Press Release (PDF)
ERNEST TROVA: INSINUATIONS
(May 25, 2007 to Jun 30, 2007)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit ERNEST TROVA: INSINUATIONS in the main gallery, featuring new collage-based prints by St.Louis most celebrated artist.
Press Release (PDF)
YVETTE DRURY DUBINSKY: Cité des Arts: Mixed Media
(Apr 20, 2007 to May 19, 2007)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit Cité des Arts: Mixed Mediaby multimedia artist Yvette Drury Dubinsky in the main gallery and in the New Media Room.
Press Release (PDF)
PETER MARCUS: Horsehead Series
(Mar 16, 2007 to Apr 14, 2007)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit Horsehead by Peter Marcus in the main gallery.
Press Release (PDF)
KELLEY JOHNSON: Recent Paintings
(Feb 09, 2007 to Mar 10, 2007)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit: Dreaming by Kelley Johnson in the main gallery.
Press Release (PDF)
JENNA BAUER: Thunder Fields
(Jan 05, 2007 to Feb 03, 2007)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit: Thunder Fields by Jenna Bauer.
Press Release (PDF)
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