Ciaran Murphy, Monkey with Eyeshadow, 2008, oil on cotton, 19” x 16”
Kavi Gupta gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in the United States of Dublin-based artist Ciaran Murphy.
Ciaran Murphy creates paintings that borrow their imagery from a myriad of sources spanning subject matter that can reach from a tropical landscape to an animal eating its prey. His choice of disparate and sparse singular vignettes alludes to the intrinsic and imperative connection of Murphy’s world of images as they relate and interact as a whole. Though quiet and poetic, his subject matter encompasses humor and violence, romance and utter mystery all at once.
Murphy’s paintings are predominantly modest in size and are marked by a subdued palette of neutral painterly and often gestured mark making. Some images are barely recognizable such as a painting of a cloud of passing smoke while others are as straight forward as a perched monkey showing off her blue eye makeup. The array of imagery does seem to eventually focus on a few recurring motifs as Murphy gravitates towards scenes of nature. Piles of twigs, uprooted trees, animals and lightning storms describe a few of these examples though this tendency does not reveal to the viewer a sign of a clear narrative, or a key to unlock a specific story. It leaves one to imagine Murphy’s paintings as a trail on an infinite journey of one artist to define for himself his own world and its surroundings.
Ciaran Murphy (b. 1978) lives and works in Dublin, Ireland. Murphy has had solo exhibitions at mother’s tankstation in Dublin, and has exhibited and been an artist in residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Selected group exhibitions include shows at Massimo Carasi in Milan, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin; Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin and the RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin.
Andrew Falkowski and Jason Loebs
Kavi Gupta Gallery is pleased to present the work of two painters whose work divergently explores the histories of painting through fundamentals of both art history and the personal mythologizing and readings of past events, objects, images and reference points.
Andrew Falkowski creates hyper-realistic paintings of lost historical prerogatives. Several works in this exhibition describe delicately flowing and thoughtfully specific arrangements of sheets of cloth. The images are taken from photographic backdrops yet naked of their posed subject becoming “portraits” in themselves. They are placeless, ‘nowhere’, evoking melancholic atmospheres, while their centrally focused light emphasizes the absent portrait, the missing still-life. As a counterpoint, a seductively romantic portrait of a heroic persona harkens to a sense of displaced optimism.
Jason Loebs works with painting as well as collage and other mixed media to explore the way one constructs the present by reconfiguring our past. Some images Loebs is drawn to are iconic such as those taken form art history textbooks where faint stains and imprints of paintings such as Manet’s Olympia can be deciphered. Others hint to our history through their use of old pages from books culled from many sources spanning science, literature, law and art. Materiality also comes into play as often linen is left uncovered, tape is visible, and cracks and stains take the form not only of a symbol of deteriorating ideals but also of one’s relationship to the retelling of what has already been.
Andrew Falkowski (b. 1973) lives and works in Chicago. He has had solo exhibitions at The Suburban in Oak Park, IL and Rosamund Felsen in Santa Monica. Recent group exhibitions include Kristi Engle Gallery, Los Angeles; and MK12 Gallery in Kansas City. An upcoming show at Hudson-Franklin in NY is also scheduled for 2009. Falkowski received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts.
Jason Loebs (b. 1981) lives and works in Brooklyn. Loebs recently received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has been included in exhibitions at Jack the Pelican Gallery, Brooklyn; and Voxpopuli, Philadelphia.
i love the title!
r.