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11/10/2002

Vernon Fisher

Charles Cowles Gallery, New York

New Paintings

Vernon Fisher revisits blackboards for his new exhibition at Charles Cowles Gallery. The chalk drawings appear vulnerable, as if a negligent rub would erase Fishers meticulous renderings, when in fact the markings are of oil paint. Abandoning text in this body of work, Fisher instead invents a syntax of disparate images to create mental associations from each smudged and layered surface. He creates a visual metonymy whose denouement is the monochromatic vignettes. Each element has its own narrative or history and many are familiar from Fishers vast archive of photographs and newspaper clippings.

As a metaphor for the mind, Fishers blackboard images connect ideas to form patterns that continually reshuffle; some come to the foreground, others recede under layers of erasure. The selection of pictures grants an intimate view into the artists interior dialogue and the thought process that leads him from appealing shapes to formal ideas. Fisher thinks of the vignettes akin to spot repairs on cars, perhaps to plug a flood of infinite image sets. Compared to his earlier blackboards the slate here is more vacant and the images more straightforward, as if the whole has recently been wiped clean with a wet cloth.
Though the chalked imagery is eclectic, each vignette contains water: an insurmountable snowy peak, a parachutist landing in water, a fisherman reeling in a prized Marlin.
Traditionally water is a symbol of infinite possibility; it is unformed and therefore can signify birth, death and regeneration.

Fishers works are in distinguished museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The exhibition will be on view at the Charles Cowles Gallery, 537 West 24th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in Chelsea. Hours are 10am to 6pm, Tuesday through Saturday.

There will be a reception for the artist on Thursday, October 10 from 6-8 pm.

For further information or photographs, please contact the gallery.

Above image: Fold, 2002, oil and blackboard slating on wood, 75 x 83

Charles Cowles Gallery
537 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
212-925-3500 tel
212-925-3501 fax

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