KELLEY JOHNSON Rhythmic Patterns
ROBERT PETTUS 8 Min. / 20 Sec.
CHARLES P. REAY Trilogy
YVONNE OSEI New Media Room: Sea to Shining Sea
KELLEY JOHNSONn Window on Forsyth Sculpture
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 2. 6-8 pm
November 2 through December 21, 2019
Bruno David is pleased to present Rhythmic Patterns, an exhibition by Kelley Johnson. Kelley Johnson’s recent work is an exploration of the formal language of painting and the application of those concepts onto installation and sculpture. The relationship between the participant and the painted object are crucial to the practice. This body of work focuses on investigating the interaction between painting and viewer and their negotiation of movement with the additional sculptural aspects of the pieces. The merging of physical space and optical illusions function as a metaphor of a kaleidoscope’s effects.
The creative process begins with mapping: lines, geometric shapes repeated, form the foundation of a sculptural language for the work. A developed system emerges and allows for intuitive, meditative painting. Sometimes the work stays within the confines of the painted support, but more often it occupies the physical space. During the building of work, there is a constant editing and adding of elements concerned with the pictorial space and physical objects that interact with it, building optical tension within the exchange.
Each piece demands to be navigated, not simply absorbed from a single position. Viewers’ bodies engage as they make choices about how to circumnavigate the work. As observed and explored from multiple vantage points, areas create spatial relationships, functioning as a dance, and changes reveal optical interactions that create patterns. The work functions as an escape to an alternate reality, away from mundane daily distractions. A visual rhythm fuels the chromatic artwork, transforming it into a dialog about tension and vibrations between spaces.
Bruno David is pleased to present Trilogy, an exhibition by Charles P. Reay. Trilogy is comprised of the titular in three parts: The Amendments series, built upon photographic images of found, wall-based assemblies of wheat-pasted posters and ephemera, amended, in each instance, through the addition of similar materials, to create three dimensional trompe l’oeil iterations of the original surfaces. In some instances, graffiti is an inherent part of the original photograph and brought into the amended work. Historic references to earlier works express suggestions discovered in the original prints. Words are provocative.
The Amazing Beetle Circus! series, is an amazing feat of artistry created by true Goliaths of the Arthropoda as they arrange themselves into inspirational tableaus expressive of world-famous artworks from the oeuvres of important minimalists resident in the pantheon of contemporary art. Within this magnificent convocation are over one hundred performing beetles, each and every one lovingly trained to perform in these extraordinary displays. It is an uncommonly performative and provocative, and not to be missed.
The Grand Menu Exceptional series offers an abbreviated taste of a Grand Tasting Menu at Wylie Dufresne’s now shuttered WD-50 Restaurant in New York. At his temple of molecular gastronomy, Dufresne served food that tested the binds of conformity as it ever opened new, exciting, always playful worlds of possibilities. Four courses are served, selected from a full menu for their sense of adventure and inventiveness: A simple poached egg starter, Quails with chartreuse yogurt and turnips, Lamb Loin on a bed of pickled chayote with red beans and rice and finally, a plurality of Meringues. The dishes are individually constructed bas-reliefs finished in Gouache and realized at a scale befitting a Grand Menu.
Bruno David is pleased to present 8 Min./20 Sec., an exhibition of new photographs by Robert Pettus. Robert Pettus continues to investigate time, light and its source the Sun, in a new series of photographs 8 Min./20 Sec. as this is the time it takes for light to travel from the Sun to Earth. Much of Pettus’s work in inspired by an interest in the effects of time. Pettus uses a minimalist aesthetic that arrests the formal qualities of light as it falls upon and defines the forms in his photographs. His work not only alludes to the essence of time and memory, but also effectively encapsulates those fleeting moments that usually go unnoticed.
Bruno David is pleased to present a new video work by Yvonne Osei, Sea to Shining Sea, in the New Media Room. Yvonne Osei’s creative practice examines beauty and colorism, the politics of clothing, complexities associated with global trade, and the residual implications of colonialism in post-colonial West Africa and Western cultures.
Bruno David is pleased to present a new sculpture by Kelley Johnson on view live in the gallery’s vitrine space Window on Forsyth.
Public Hours Tuesday-Friday 11 am – 6 pm, Saturday 11 am – 5 pm, Closed Sundays and Mondays,
Bruno David Gallery
7513 Forsyth Boulevard
Saint Louis, MO 63105
314.696.2377
