calendario eventi  :: 

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9/4/2010

Two exhibitions

Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York

Three-Handed
Eric White, Nicola Verlato, Fulvio Di Piazza

Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to announce Three-Handed, a three-person exhibition of new large-scale paintings by New York based artists Eric White and Nicola Verlato, along with Palermo-based artist Fulvio Di Piazza. Showing together for the first time at the gallery, these three skilled painters take a realist approach towards fantasy subject matter.

For his largest work to date, Eric White takes inspiration from Bruegel’s Massacre of the Innocents—which documents Spanish infanticide in 16th century Flanders, and stands as a condemnation of war and it’s resulting atrocities. White’s version translates these ideas into contemporary terms, as American involvement in war has become so established and enduring that it ceases to be shocking. In the painting, idealized monochromatic female figures referencing 40s-era Hollywood starlets wander nonchalantly across a war-torn cinematic landscape. The war motif is paralleled by themes familiar to the artist’s work, including psychological dysfunction, nostalgia, the dream state, and the limits of perception.

Nicola Verlato’s highly dramatic allegorical compositions are each rendered with remarkable use of perspective, reminiscent of the Renaissance-era yet also influenced by video game technology. One painting portrays a group of heavily armed male and female terrorists invading an art fair, fully nude, wearing only athletic footwear and animal masks. Another piece depicts an apocalyptic vision as seen through the window of an airplane. Finally, on a large linen canvas, a figure representing legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson sells his soul to the devil, while a vision appears to him of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar being played by demons in the sky—as a premonition of the birth of Rock & Roll.

Fulvio Di Piazza’s whimsical paintings depict rivers running through sunny nature-scapes, forests populated with wildlife and lush green woods that stretch far beyond the horizon. With extraordinary detail and depth, the fantasy realm of the artist’s saturated woodland scenes are revealed through his imaginative anthropomorphized plant life as distinct faces emerge from unsuspected hills, rocks and tree trunks, sprouting limbs rather than branches.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Eric White was born in 1968 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1990. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been exhibited at MACRO Museum in Rome and American Visionary Museum in Baltimore. He has participated in charitable group exhibitions such as STAGES (which traveled to Paris and New York) and benefits the LIVESTRONG Foundation, as well as consecutive years in the annual Re*Generation auction, benefitting homeless youth. Nicola Verlato was born in 1965 in Verona, Italy. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Verlato began painting at a very early age. Trained in Classical music, and with an interest in Rock, Verlato has also composed music for documentary films. He studied architecture at the University of Venice, and moved to New York in 2004. An installation of Verlato’s paintings and sculptures were exhibited at the 2009 Venice Biennale in the Italian Pavilion (please click HERE to view images). Fulvio Di Piazza was born in 1969 in Siracusa, Italy. He studied at Urbino Art Academy and participated in the Quadriennale exhibition in Rome in 2008. He currently lives and works in Palermo, Italy.

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Gallery II

Date Farmers
Smother Your Mother

Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to present Smother Your Mother, an exhibition of new collaborative works by Armando Lerma and Carlos Ramirez, known collaboratively as the Date Farmers. This will be the second show at the gallery for the Coachella Valley based artists, and will feature a site-specific installation.

In Smother Your Mother, the tone of the work shifts focus toward themes of mental neurosis, confronting dark fears and the compelling quality of the visually or conceptually grotesque—like the irresistible need to look at a car wreck or pick at a scab. The artists say that some of the ideas conveyed are spiritual, while others are just stories, "...Christ, the devil, nightmares, candles, saying I love you, shape shifting into animals, running back home, smoking a cigarette that you found, the fear of getting your ass kicked, being mad about nothing, telling the truth in disguise." Of the found materials used in their work, the unwanted and discarded, they say "we just make it wanted again. Ugly is beautiful."

The Date Farmers continue to develop what has become their signature aesthetic, incorporating found objects into their assemblage works which include aspects of collage, hand-painted typography, and cross-hatch drawing techniques. The work contains elements influenced by graffiti, Mexican street murals, traditional revolutionary posters, prison art, tattoos, and sign painting, while often combining familiar pop iconography and corporate logos with figures from comics, folklore and Catholicism. The artists use this language to create shadow-box dioramas and three-dimensional sculptures as well as two-dimensional pieces. Working on recycled metal signage and other alternative canvases, the pair create a dynamic dialogue between the subject matter and the materials themselves, resulting in vividly colorful imagery layered in rich texture and symbolism.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Armando Lerma and Carlos Ramirez joined artistic forces after meeting at a Coachella Valley art gallery in 1998. In 2001 they entered the Los Angeles gallery scene as the Date Farmers with a show at New Image Art. Using found materials such as discarded signs, wood and corrugated metal, their work echoes Mexican-American heritage rooted in California pop culture. Through their unique cultural perspective as American-born Chicanos, the artists explore topical subjects with profound simplicity. Their work has been exhibited in museums such as Oakland Museum of California, Laguna Art Museum and Palm Springs Art Museum. In 2008, the artists’ Crying Playboy exhibition at Jonathan LeVine Gallery was the subject of a short documentary program, which aired on the Current TV cable network.

Image: Date Farmers, El Amor de Dios, mixed media on panel 25.5 x 49.5 x 3.5 inches (64.77 x 125.73 x 8.89 cm)

Opening saturday april 10th h 7-9 p.m.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery
529 West 20th Street, 9th floor New York, NY 10011
Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm

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