Henders's paintings are large, spare and sexy. They are reminiscent of that bachelor-cool era, 1962-75. - Go go dancers and playboys. - Strut and tease. The palette is black, white and grey. The paint handling, sensuous and direct. It is a voluminous pictorial space. The characters in it are buoyant and heroic.
Jack the Pelican Presents is pleased to introduce Doug Henders, in his first ever solo exhibition.
Henders's paintings are large, spare and sexy. They are reminiscent of that bachelor-cool era, 1962-75. -Go go dancers and playboys. -Strut and tease.
The palette is black, white and grey. The paint handling, sensuous and direct. It is a voluminous pictorial space. The characters in it are buoyant and heroic.
A voluptuous woman pulls her shirt up over her face. A supervixen appears caught in a hoola moment. And so on. They are reduced to contours. - Lines fleshing out figural gestures. Like the pulses of a Magnetic Resonance Image scan. But they are recognizable as types. Their presence is iconic.
And they are pictures, repeated and displaced, producing that film projector is stuck effect. Reminiscent of Muybridge, but more precisely spellbinding. Almost psychedelic. A large painting of a turntable belies the root of Henders's tactic in the convention of the DJ remix.
Henders foregrounds this style to produce a distinctly period flavor. The ghosts that haunt his paintings are powerful for their sublimated sexuality. Their knowing innocence. As are the paintings themselves, couched coyly and without irony in the terms of the grand tradition of Ab Ex painting.
Doug Henders has exhibited at such New York venues as Bronwyn Keenan Gallery, Feature, the Drawing Center and with Kenny Schacter and Pierogi. But this is a decisive new body of work. Notable in its move toward a new, more peppy and taut restraint. He credits Pollock. --The movie. Not the artist.
Opening: Friday, May 16, 7-9pm
Hours: Friday-Monday 12-6
Jack the Pelican Presents
487 Driggs Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718-782-0183
Cross streets: North 9th & North 10th Streets
Subway: L Train to Bedford Avenue