GREG GOLDBERG: NORTHERN LIGHT
April 17 - May 31, 2013
Opening Reception: April 17, 6-8 p.m.
Stephan Stoyanov Gallery is pleased to announce ``Northern Light,'' the first solo exhibition by Greg Goldberg.
The show features abstract paintings and works on paper, all done in natural light at Goldberg's North facing studio in New York. Each work is a hand-made object, built slowly over time by layering dozens of pigments to create unique color relationships. Rich in opaque, translucent and transparent hues, the paintings change with light throughout the day and over the seasons.
Goldberg's ongoing dialog with art history is tied into his contemporary art practice.
The usage of color as a vehicle for expression was inspired by an early interest in Florentine Mannerist Jacopo Pontormo; the emphasis on light comes out of Venetian masters. The process of making each piece - from using rabbit-skin glue, a traditional lead ground and slow build-up of color - is connected to the Old Masters, while the investigation of the painting as subject matter ties the work to postwar American abstraction.
While the works are evocative, they don't refer to anything other than the history of their own making. Up close, they reveal a complex structure as new color transitions and brushwork passages continue to come into focus. Tension is built by using pigments that reflect and absorb light and brushwork that feels suppressed in some areas and exuberant in others.
The project as a whole is about creating rich visual sensations through ever more refined and unexpected color combinations. As the viewer is drawn into the exploration of the paintings' layered archeology, time seems to have slowed down.
Born in 1973, Goldberg is a native New Yorker. He graduated from Skidmore College and studied painting in Florence, Italy. His works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
Art Critical The Color of Light: A Studio Visit with Greg Godberg
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MERCURY RETROGRADE: AMIMATED REALITIES
March 31st - May 21st, 2013
Stephan Stoyanov Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Mercury Retrograde: Animated Realities, an international selection of artists making animated videos. The exhibition is curated by William Heath & Zeljka Himbele, and features animations by Brian Alfred, Karina Aguilera Skvirsky, Aline Bouvy & John Gillis, eteam, Cliff Evans, Jan Nalevka and Noah Spiderman & Scott Gelber.
The title of the exhibition takes on a specific optical illusion referred to as Mercury retrograde; three or four times a year, the planet Mercury appears to move backward in its orbit when seen from Earth. In popular astrology, Mercury retrograde marks intense periods when things go awry, signaling the need for reflection and revision of our lives. This is a time for veering away from the past and taking cautious steps forward. Mercury's cycle has been speculated as the cause of major course corrections for society; it gives us a chance to grow as humans, to raise critical awareness, and possibly make a movement towards radical change.
Appropriating popular culture images from television, film, web, newspaper, tabloid, and fashion magazines, the artists in the exhibition manipulate source materials with a variety of aesthetic approaches and montage techniques that offer reflections upon our mass media-saturated cultures and uncertain future. The materiality of animation allows for flattening, collaging, reduction, and abstraction of the appropriated material that at once allows the absurdity of contemporary life to stand more singularly and clearly. The works collectively vibrate with an omnipresent feeling of anxiety, a kind of anxious energy that demands we consider the current paths and policies we have allowed to be chosen for us. The works grapple with complex topics surrounding the culture of spectacle, excesses of consumption, economy and power relations in the era of globalization and interconnectedness, and reveal the artists' simultaneous fascination with and critique of our culture, society, and politics.
