David Sandlin
dal 16/4/2002 al 18/5/2002
Segnalato da
16/4/2002
David Sandlin
Gracie Mansion Gallery, New York
Sorrow Falls. Joy Rises. For this show Sandlin has produced his most epic and ambitious painting to date: Sorrow Falls. Joy Rises, the centerpiece of the show. The Northern Irish-born New Yorker's quirky painting style and mordant humor combine to portray the artist's ambivalent yet unblinking attempt to confront fatherhood and mortality.
Sorrow Falls . Joy Rises
It's time, folks . step on up, folks.express checkout.7 generations or
less! Time to pay for the sins of the fathers.the wages of man.time to
stop being a permanent teenager.time to step up to manhood.be an
adult.with adult cares and woes and loves and joys.time to look hard at
your fathers and father figures.time to take on the trappings of your
mortality. Time to love.time to live.time to realize there's not time
for everything.maybe just time to enjoy being a dad, a hubby, and an
artist before it's time to check out. Hurry up, folks, it's time.Soooo
many souls. I never knew death had undone so many.
David Sandlin has shown with Gracie Mansion for almost 20 years, and
since 1986 he has been painting a never-ending tour of Sinland-a world
of lust highways, Southern Gothic guilt, and ephemeral redemptions.
For this show Sandlin has produced his most epic and ambitious painting
to date: Sorrow Falls.Joy Rises, the centerpiece of the show. The
Northern Irish-born New Yorker's quirky painting style and mordant humor
combine to portray the artist's ambivalent yet unblinking (well, maybe a
little blinking) attempt to confront fatherhood and mortality.
"Since the death of my father a few years ago," says Sandlin, "I've
thought a lot about my relationship with my dad in particular and
"heritage" in general-the cultural baggage that one picks up from
personal, family connection; all the moral ambiguities that arise when
historical precepts are faced with contemporary realities."
Specifically, Sandlin invokes the ghosts in his family's closet in order
to prepare himself for fatherhood and curb the flow of negative
influences in his cultural inheritance.
Inevitably, the theme of the work is mortality. In Sorrow Falls, Sandlin
is not just impassively surveying his ancestors on the escalator of
eternity, he's stepping up to the "checkout" counter himself. "What
could make me think so much about this? The death of my father . the
birth of my son . or maybe just the feeling of mortality one gets as
gray creeps and then rushes into your hair."
Sorrow Falls began as a three-page fold-out drawing for his most recent
artist book in his Sinner's Progress series, Road to Nowhere.Road to
Pair o' Dice, but the painted version has taken Sandlin out of the
puritanical realm of saints and sinners into a world that is filled with
the joys and fears of parenthood.
Other paintings in the exhibition include small studies for potential
"heaven" and "hell" panels to accompany the main piece. In these
peaceable and unpeaceable kingdoms, Sandlin depicts gardens of love and
gardens of destruction wherein he and his wife are portrayed as modern
demigods of war and love. Leading up to Sorrow Falls are a group of
paintings that trace early father-and-sonhood from the glint in the old
man's eye (Light of My life, Light of My Loins) through Tunnel of Love
and Womb with a View and on to the playful toddler stage of Bring Me the
Head of Da, Da, culminating with the self-flagellating love-muscle
martyrdom of Our Father Who Art Thou and the buxom, sympathetically
lactating Purely Paternal Artist. Clearly, Sandlin will never quite be
the same.
Image: David Sandlin, Sorrow Falls
Opening reception: Wednesday, April 17, 2002, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11 - 6 pm
GRACIE MANSION Gallery
504 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011
T. 212.645.7656 F. 212.462.4111