FRANKLIN EVANS
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selfportraitas - solo exhibition, at FL Gallery (Milan, Italy, 2018)

 

In selfportraitas I extend my use of art history in a series of paintings, each using as a primary structure another artist (e.g., Frank Stella), artwork (e.g., Gene Davis' Franklin Footpath), or art historic moment (e.g., Futurism). I am interested both in the historic positioning of art along history's continuum and also in its dissolution in our hyper-image age. I work through artists I admire and/or seek to better understand the material and form from which it emerged, and I fold that study into my own work. In working through other art I free associate, imbibing the freedom to multi-directionally focus as the context of my study is altered by daily image feeds, the exhibitions I directly visit, and my reading. For example, in my selfportraitasfuturism or selfportraitasseverini, I started with a pixel grid scale up of a documentation image of my own 2018 watercolor cutoutastext, itself a work using Matisse's cutouts to propel its composition. Through the painting process I saw repetition and movement, which inspired me to visit MoMA to see some Futurist art. I focused on Severini's 1912 Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin, recognizing some parallels in its composition to my own working painting.

At FL Gallery I emphasize the paintings as their own objects with a subtle acknowledgement of my larger painting installation practice. The installation will include a wall of prints of all the artists I referenced in making these paintings. The representations of these artists (mostly photographic) look directly at representations of themselves. Nearly eighty artists are referenced in these paintings (from Titian and Matisse to Dana Schutz and Laura Owens), and also include four of my own undergraduate Cooper Union painting students, a leveling of the traditional hierarchy.

Artists referenced in selfportraitas: Josef Albers, Lewis Baltz, Mel Bochner, Pierre Bonnard, Alex Brown, Joan Brown, Mathew Cerletty, Paul Cezanne, Amanda Church, Chuck Close, Matt Connors, Gene Davis, Giorgio de Chirico, Willem de Kooning, David Deutsch, John Dilg, Lois Dodd, Peter Doig, Lydia Dona, Rosalyn Drexler, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Carrol Dunham, Franklin Evans, Tony Feher, Liana Finck, Matthew Fisher, Casper David Friedrich, Casey Gallagher, Jackie Gendel, Sam Gilliam, Elliott Green, Mimi Gross, Josephine Halvorson, Valerie Hegarty, Braden Hollis, Jaqueline Humphries, Anthony Iacono, David Jacobs, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Nicholas Krushenick, Federico Luger, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Pierre Mondrian, Carrie Moyer, Elizabeth Murray, Thomas Nozkowski, Jim Nutt, Joe Overstreet, Laura Owens, Nicolas Party, Sarah Peters, Pablo Picasso, Sigmar Polke, Arthur Rimbaud, Dana Schutz, Georges Seurat, Gino Severini, Sylvia Sleigh, Josh Smith, Frank Stella, Robert Swain, Bob Thompson, Titian, Amelie von Wulffen, Wendy Wahlert, John Wesley, Terry Winters, Karl Wirsum, Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Wojnarowicz, Eric Wolf, Grant Wood, Alexi Worth, Paul David Young, and Zoe Zirsen.

 

He is a current recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.

Link to FL Gallery selfportraitas, 2018 PRESS RELEASE

 

PRESS COVERAGE

Link to alfabeta2 Review, Francesca Vivente, December 2018.

Link to Arts Life Review, November 2018.

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