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24/10/2009

Jesse Willenbring

Laurel Gitlen Small A Projects, New York

Small A Projects is pleased to present Jesse Willenbring in his first solo exhibition at the gallery, Landscapes & Interiors Meour. The exhibition opens Sunday, October 25th and runs through December 20th, 2009. A reception will be held for the artist from 6-8 pm on October 25th.

This exhibition centers around four large paintings — all oil on tablecloths mounted to panel. A pair of vertical works loosely describes an interior space. Determined yet elegant, the paintings build from a frenetic and flatly painted depiction of objects on a table in After Hike (T.P.), to a transparent and glowing painting of what could be the same decomposing vignette in Clara Bow. In the two horizontal pictures the compositional structure is stretched and flattened to such a degree that the line of sight is displaced. In Married, flatly painted ovoid forms float calmly across a glossy, plaid surface; and in The Ghost of Chilaquiles, saturated and writhing pinks, greens and violets are violently piled atop a celadon toile. Competing and amplifying layers within each composition further a tension between illusionary space and the material object of the painting and its support.

Willenbring’s theoretical approach to painting is blatantly inclusive. References, appropriation and intuition are exercised simultaneously as sources of pleasure and tools of invention. While viewing the work solicits historical reference, these allusions lend themselves to a game of formal ventriloquisms and ambitious re- thinkings. Instead of averting derivative citation, Willenbring advances a number of circuitous and playful associations: A Matisse-like form might collide with a Hartley-esque bump next to a Picasso-y shape in a complicated ground of layered pattern, texture and color that has its own internal logic.

As with many of his curatorial activities (including most recently the exhibition and potluck dinner series, Don’t Perish, at Leo Koenig Projekte), the paintings articulate a space between the self-indulgence of the studio and the theatrical conditions of display. In this way, Willenbring instigates a generous dialogue about painting and furthers an ongoing concern in the work: a correlation between the abstract meeting of artist and observer and the awkward delights of a good dinner party.

Jesse Willenbring lives and works in New York and has been included in group exhibitions including The Living and the Dead at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise curated by Darren Bader; and Me, You, You, A Ventriloquy, Small A Projects, Portland and Signs of Some Precarity, Klaus von Nichtsaggend, Brooklyn, both curated by Carter Mull. He was the co-curator of Don’t Perish at Leo Koenig Projekte, and Rose Colored Glasses at GBE @ Passerby.

Opening reception Sunday, October 25, 6-8 pm

Small A Projects
261 Broome Street New York, NY 10002
The gallery is open from noon-six, Wednesday through Sunday and by appointment.

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