Bucolica obscura. Project Room: David Hilliard
Bucolica obscura
Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to introduce new work by the innovative collaboration Asgar/Gabriel. Asgar/Gabriel's large-scale paintings are postmodern mise en scène where linear narrative is lost; where the figurative and the abstract, image and text exist simultaneously and vie for the viewer's attention. These dislocated canvases ironically serve to locate a contemporary audience who is perfectly at ease with the disjunctive over-stimulation of a world saturated by the media and the image.
In an age of appropriation, Asgar/Gabriel acknowledge numerous Art Historical influences. Elements of painting - from Baroque to Pop Art to Abstraction - are all absorbed and reassembled to create worlds where reality and virtuality interplay.
Just as their youthful subjects set themselves adrift within this fragmentary, shifting landscape, the viewer happily succumbs to the sensory overload.
Considering the flood of images inundating us every day, at the start of each of our works we face the question of the specific options that differentiate the painted picture from other pictorial media.
Asgar/Gabriel
Daryoush Asgar received his MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Vienna, Austria). Asgar was awarded the Strabag Art Award in 2002. Elisabeth Gabriel received both her BA and MA from the University of Vienna (Vienna, Austria). Since forming the collaboration Asgar/Gabriel in 2005, their work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe in group exhibitions and art fairs. In the past two years they have had solo shows in New York, Vienna, Spain and now Los Angeles. This will be their inaugural exhibition at the Mark Moore Gallery. Asgar and Gabriel live and work in Vienna, Austria.
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Project Room:
January 10 – February 14, 2009
David Hilliard
Being Like
Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to present new work from renowned photographer David Hilliard in the Project Room. Through his signature multi-paneled prints, Hilliard constructs cinematic narratives that skillfully address both the individual and the universal. Although the life we bear witness to is quite obviously his, the feelings evoked in his work; isolation, nostalgia, desire, are common to all.
His images fluctuate seamlessly from the obviously staged to the casual encounter; each individual panel perfectly composed while functioning to complete the larger theme. The literal and temporal distance between each panel only acts to enhance the sense of narrative and underline the viewer's awareness of the passage of time. Such a profound notion resonates with the audience and prompts them to consider the fleeting and multi-faceted nature of their own memories.
[The] multiplicity of narratives, coupled with his superb technical acuity, is what gives Hilliard's work such emotional depth. He can capture the feeling and mood of a long-ago summer in one frame, or evoke the tenuous relationship between father and son in one simple gesture.
Mikel Wadewitz
David Hilliard received his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art (Boston, MA) before going on to complete his MFA at Yale University, (New Haven, CT). He has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States and his work has been featured in group exhibitions worldwide. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2001, amongst other awards, and his work has been featured in numerous publications. Hilliard's work is included in various noteworthy collections internationally, from MOCA and LACMA in Los Angeles to The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Being Like will be Hilliard's fourth solo show at the Mark Moore Gallery. He lives and works in Boston, MA.
Image: Asgar/Gabriel, neue Ordnung, 2008, oil on canvas 51 x 75 inches
Opening reception for the artists: January 10th, 5-7pm
Mark Moore Gallery
2525 Michigan Avenue, A1 Santa Monica, CA 90404
hours: Tue – Fri 10 – 6 pm, Sat 11- 5pm
Free admission