6/4/2004
Dark Victory
Satellite, New York
An exhibition of oil paintings and watercolors by Dan Ford. In this exhibition Ford creates a series of landscapes and interiors that exude the atmospheric and light-drenched qualities found in the works of J. M. W. Turner. Though each work may reference an actual Turner painting, the imagery has been replaced with scenes from recent breaking news, such as sinking supertankers or the bombed-out palaces of the fallen Iraqi regime.
SATELLITE is extremely pleased to present "Dark Victory," an exhibition of
oil paintings and watercolors by Dan Ford.
Dan Ford's richly painted canvases and watercolors pay homage to 18th and
19th century English Romantic and genre paintings, while updating the
subject matter rendered in these signature styles so that the work lands
squarely in the middle of our contemporary consciousness. In this exhibition
Ford creates a series of landscapes and interiors that exude the atmospheric
and light-drenched qualities found in the works of J. M. W. Turner. Though
each work may reference an actual Turner painting, the imagery has been
replaced with scenes from recent breaking news, such as sinking supertankers
or the bombed-out palaces of the fallen Iraqi regime.
Ford mines the rich fields of art history, as well as the social and
political histories behind such movements. Ford's conflation of Romantic
genre painting and contemporary imagery creates a conceptually based time
continuum that examines and compares the projection of power by the British
Empire during the Industrial Revolution with the current straying towards
empire on the part of the United States. In such works as "The Forty Virgins
Spiriting away the Evidence of WMD Before the Arrival of the Crusaders,"
Ford beautifully renders an absurd, fantastical scene in which virginal
apparitions writhe towards the heavens, carrying away the weapons evidence
from dusty, sun baked 'mobile germ labs.' The explosive composition and
subject call to mind Benjamin West, and wittily take note of the current
clash between fundamentalist ideologies.
"Dark Victory" transforms the Satellite gallery into a space reminiscent of
a period drawing room, where one can contemplate the political underpinnings
behind Ford's darkly romantic and humorous paintings.
Dan Ford has exhibited in, among other venues, The Drawing Center (New
York), Hudson River Museum (Yonkers), Dumbo Art Center (Brooklyn), White
Columns (New York), Hood Museum of Art (Hanover, NH) and Art in General (New
York). His work will appear this spring at, among other venues, The Rotunda
Gallery (Brooklyn), and The Brattleboro Museum (Brattleboro, VT).
Reception Wednesday, April 7, 7-10 PM
Hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 12-6 PM
SATELLITE® - a division of ROEBLING HALL
94 Prince Street (on the corner of Mercer)
New York, NY 10012
t: 212 966 9043
f: 718 599 6640