Bruno David Gallery: Friday, 27 February 2015

KEN WORLEY: Denizens

Project Room
DAMON FREED: Obstacle and Void

Media Arts Room
WILLIAM MORRIS: Dog’s Dream recut

February 27 – March 21, 2015
Opening Reception:
Friday, February 27, 2015 from 6 to 9 pm

Bruno David Gallery is delighted to present a special exhibition of recent paintings by Ken Worley, a series of new works on paper by Damon Freed and, a new video-work by William Morris

In the Project Room, we are pleased to present Damon Freed’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery entitled Obstacle and Void. Freed writes on this new series of work “There’s something raw that I like about working on paper. The surface is readily absorbent; it holds the mark in a different way than canvas. It allows for both a delicate hand and a forceful touch, for both staining techniques and marks that are thicker and squeezed directly from the tube. In this series, you will notice that I have divided the paper formats into three sections. I have held onto the central motif of the square that I am accustomed to, yet extended the pieces above and below to create vertical formats. In most of the paintings the above and below spaces act as voids, a place to rest. Most of the painterly activity happens in the middle of the verticals, inside of the square. With this in mind, three of the key pieces in the show exhibit what I refer to as Obstacle and Void space.

Like nonobjective or nonrepresentational paintings from times past we must also be unsatisfied with what came before and envision anew. We cannot rest on the old terms used to communicate, however unlikely, with words what pictures provide today. To create a new language of forms is also to create a new language of terms used to discuss the forms. And indeed we are creating new forms. So to the evolution of positive and negative, foreground and background, figure and field, push and pull, I would like to propose the idea of Obstacle and Void. The need for a new wording has arisen out of my work.

When viewing the obstacle one must visually go around it. In definitive works it is there. It is the positive or protruding shape within the composition that one must work to understand and to spatially navigate. Upon going around the shapes one may rest in the void space of the picture. I often associate the void with relaxation of the eyes and mind. It is the part of the picture that relates strongly to the metaphysical or ethereal quality of being and seeing. It is usually the more atmospheric part of the painting. The major difference between Hans Hofmann’s idea of push and pull and my outlining of Obstacle and Void space is that the obstacle and void do not interchange. The obstacle, like a boulder in your way on a path, is static. The void is akin to the sky behind the boulder.”

In the Media Arts Room, the gallery presents a single-channel video work titled “Dog’s Dream recut” by William Morris.
The title of this work comes from an edited Super 8 film by Tony Patti, circa 1973. It repurposes Patti’s filmic experimentation, utilizing some “accidents” from the original. This footage combined with actual video from my own cardiac catheterization procedure in 2009 yields this interpretation in which aspects of memory, physiology and nostalgia coincide, simulating a lucid dream state. The narrative is a clinical description of the procedure and diagnosis accompanied by improvised solo viola, played back at half-speed.

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