David Richard Gallery Podcasts

David Richard Gallery is pleased to debut Heather McGill's newest series of artworks in the presentation, Invisible Bloom, her second solo exhibition with the Gallery. The presentation includes 10 new paintings produced over the past 30 months during the pandemic. The new paintings were created with the artist's novel process as she describes in the statement below. The compositions are abstract while the imagery is from the natural world and specifically from readymade fabrics and lace mass produced for women's clothing and draperies. Each painting has many layers of imagery and paint that is then sanded to reveal colors and patterns below. Looking closer reveals floral and insect motifs bringing nature into the patterning and overall psychedelic feel as well as designs from iconic fashion designers. Art historical references, numerous binaries, and subversions anchor the new work in painting, but McGill's processes are rooted in sculpture, which dominated most of her studio practice and teaching career. Hence, the casting process with gel medium and textiles as stencils for patterns and images, as well as the use of automotive paints and lacquers comes naturally to the artist. The additions of painted and coordinated imagery on borders, and often more than one, functions as a frame, but also adds dimensionality and depth to the paintings and hence, making them object-like and co-locating them as sculpture.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new artworks by Dee Shapiro, Redrawn and Redressed, in her third solo presentation with the gallery. The new artworks are comprised of: original painting and ink renderings, collaging of found printed papers, textiles and sewing trims, appropriation of her own original artworks and human hair as well as appropriated published imagery. In the aggregate, these diverse media and methods create female figures that are mostly nude, bathing, or reclining, as her versions of classic female nudes presented over centuries of art history. Shapiro's use of geometric patterns and domestic materials brings a different perspective and interpretation to the nude female body. While they are still sexy and full of intrigue, there is a literalness of the female form—and body parts—that moves beyond a gaze and sexualization to a focus on: line, form, color, and the complexities of the constructions and process. Shapiro's redux of the classical nudes brings a matter-of-fact presentation of the female body with a focus on unique materials and interpretations that provides an immediacy and contemporary perspective to an all too familiar image and historical male scrutiny of the female form. As the title suggests, "redrawing" and "redressing" not only re-presents the imagery in a new context but also attempts to rectify how the female body has historically been overly sexualized and coveted throughout art history. The collages of Shapiro play with several concepts: the real shapes of women versus the idealized female form based on the male perspective; the unique and functional aspects of the female body for reproduction versus purely for male pleasure; deconstructing the conventional portrayal of the female figure as only sinuous and supple and redrawing the classic female nudes using the artist's own drawn and painted patterns, sewing materials—often considered "women's work"—and human (including pubic) hair. The resulting artworks by Shapiro are less sexualized and objectified portrayals of women's bodies, as opposed to the historical commissioned portraits—by the Masters in the canon of art history—of women who were most likely the "prize" of the men paying the Masters to capture forever the women's perceived and cherished fleshy beauty in pigment and oil.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new artworks by Dee Shapiro, Redrawn and Redressed, in her third solo presentation with the gallery. The new artworks are comprised of: original painting and ink renderings, collaging of found printed papers, textiles and sewing trims, appropriation of her own original artworks and human hair as well as appropriated published imagery. In the aggregate, these diverse media and methods create female figures that are mostly nude, bathing, or reclining, as her versions of classic female nudes presented over centuries of art history. Shapiro's use of geometric patterns and domestic materials brings a different perspective and interpretation to the nude female body. While they are still sexy and full of intrigue, there is a literalness of the female form—and body parts—that moves beyond a gaze and sexualization to a focus on: line, form, color, and the complexities of the constructions and process. Shapiro's redux of the classical nudes brings a matter-of-fact presentation of the female body with a focus on unique materials and interpretations that provides an immediacy and contemporary perspective to an all too familiar image and historical male scrutiny of the female form. As the title suggests, "redrawing" and "redressing" not only re-presents the imagery in a new context but also attempts to rectify how the female body has historically been overly sexualized and coveted throughout art history. The collages of Shapiro play with several concepts: the real shapes of women versus the idealized female form based on the male perspective; the unique and functional aspects of the female body for reproduction versus purely for male pleasure; deconstructing the conventional portrayal of the female figure as only sinuous and supple and redrawing the classic female nudes using the artist's own drawn and painted patterns, sewing materials—often considered "women's work"—and human (including pubic) hair. The resulting artworks by Shapiro are less sexualized and objectified portrayals of women's bodies, as opposed to the historical commissioned portraits—by the Masters in the canon of art history—of women who were most likely the "prize" of the men paying the Masters to capture forever the women's perceived and cherished fleshy beauty in pigment and oil.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Violets are Blue, an exhibition by New York-based artist Claire Seidl and her first solo presentation with the gallery. The exhibit is comprised of 15 oil paintings, mostly on linen and a couple on canvas, painted during 2021 and the first part of 2022 with just a few included from 2018 to 2020 that resonate with the new paintings. The compositions created by the artist's layering of drawn lines with a range of subtle to bold gestural strokes will be readily recognized. However, the surprise in this new body of work is the broader, more vivid color palette that includes pinks, yellows, blues and reds. The three paintings incorporating pink are the largest in the presentation and would even make De Kooning take pause. The variations in hues are from soft pink infused with yellow, thinly applied as ground colors, with overlays of thin, bold, linear strokes of black in The Big Picture that create an upbeat nod to spring. Another painting with pink, Believe You Me, is moodier with combinations of red and pink, overlayed with thicker, bolder, wider strokes of black and white. The third painting, Take it From Me, uses darker pink with smudges of red, infused with yellow, to generate an orange glow. Black is also extensively used in this work, but in two contrasting ways: dark, fine lines and thin, translucent swaths of black that read as dark gray revealing the warmer colors below. The yellows are also very dynamic, ranging from large passages of sun-kissed lemon yellow in It Don't Mean A Thing, to thick, short smudges of less vibrant, ocher yellow on a neutralized grey-green ground, accented with thin vertical strokes of bright yellow in This Must be the Place; then, all the way to a darker painting derived from the surface-mixing of yellow with black that generates an olive green color with hints of bright yellow peeking through.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present new geometric, color-based, abstract paintings by Heather Jones in her first solo exhibition with the Gallery. The presentation is comprised of 15 new works, all dynamic with hard-edge geometric shapes and patterns that wrap around the sides with high key and contrasting colors that yield a range of optical to trippy compositions and all made of sewn textiles stretched on stretcher bars. While they read as paintings, the artworks are rich with content, rooted in feminist concerns and as the artist stated, honoring "female narratives that are often neglected from history." They also celebrate and were inspired by sewing and quilt making as well as Jones's Appalachian heritage. The title of the presentation, To Hold Tender This Land, a line from African American author, activist and feminist from Kentucky, Bell Hooks' Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place, exemplifies Jones's commitment to honoring strong and influential women and places that inspire her and her artwork. This debut exhibition of new work at the Gallery coincides with Jones's solo exhibition of related and larger paintings at the Contemporary Dayton in Dayton, Ohio that opened earlier in February. Her presentation, Storytellers, is one of three concurrent solo exhibitions of artworks on view by Jones, Odili Donald Odita, and Jeffrey Gibson.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present a series of abstract color paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Carl E. Hazlewood (born 1951, Guyana, South America) that have never been presented as a group until now. The paintings began initially by staining, then built up with layers of color, medium, and additions of metallic, fluorescent and mirrored materials that brought complexity, depth and texture. This exhibition, Demerara Dreaming: Triptych Paintings: 1996 – 2003, also debuts the Gallery's opening of a new space in Chelsea, its second location in New York. The Hazlewood presentation includes fourteen narrow horizontal paintings, each a triptych measuring from 10 x 37 to mostly 10 x 44 and 10 x 46 inches, up to one very long painting at 10 x 66 inches. The three canvases comprising each triptych are stretched on separate stretcher bars with a larger horizontal canvas in the center flanked by two smaller vertical rectangular canvases on either side. The canvases themselves are the salvaged edges and discarded portions from earlier and much larger canvases by Hazlewood that he painted as early as the 1980s and cut them down to the desired shape and dimensions at the time of their creation. Years later, from 1996 to 2003, these remnants became the source material for a series of roughly 25 small horizontal paintings, of which only these 14 remain and are presented now for the first time as a group. The other eleven paintings were gifted to various individuals and institutions.

The newest series of paintings by Isaac Aden, presented in his fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, are monumental in scale with single canvases measuring 144 x 108 inches and triptychs with overall dimensions of 80 x 120 and 80 x 132 inches. The paintings fill the galley as each canvas and triptych was planned and scaled specifically for each wall. Beyond the grand size of each canvas, the palettes are ethereal and complex in that they are reductive, canvas-filling, physical mixtures of aerosolized oil paint applied to a ground of tonal gray oil paint in a pointillist approach (or pixilated in a contemporary digital vernacular) using only primary colors: red, blue and yellow. At first glance, each painting (and in the aggregate within the gallery) evokes a monochrome reading, while the stronger sensation is a moodiness that each conveys alone, when interacting with adjacent canvases, and more importantly, with each viewer. The palettes and stoic compositions convey a range of interpretations from serene and meditative to somber and almost dystopian.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Looking Back and Moving Forward, a solo exhibition of 12 artworks by Andrew Spence in his debut presentation with the gallery. The presentation also debuts a suite of five abstract paintings that were conceived and initiated as hard edge silk screen prints on canvas in 1998. Recently completed in 2020 and 2021, the suite, along with the process and resulting imagery, is the critical focus of the exhibition. The presentation also includes seven artworks that represent smaller series of paintings and prints from which imagery was appropriated and incorporated into the suite of paintings by layering certain forms and compositional elements on top of the silk screen images. Thus, the geometric screen prints serve as the ground, while the painted layered shapes and forms became the figure. The hybrid compositions combine and contrast visual and theoretical themes in art such as: non-objective abstraction and representational elements; hard edge and gestural abstraction; flat and illusory space; literal and imagined places; reality and memory; high art and graphic design; nature and architecture; original paintings and reproductions; handmade and prefab.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Joe Ramiro Garcia, Keep Off the Grass, his first solo exhibition in New York and debut with the gallery. Garcia's paintings are narrative, derived from current events and inspired by art historical figures, while the imagery and palettes reference personal memories and emotions. Initially, the paintings appear Pop-inspired and a collaging of everyday, somewhat banal and often appropriated images. However, the paintings are highly technical in that they also incorporate a complex printing process to introduce certain imagery that provides not only layers of color and detail, but also content as a referent and/or memory trigger. The medium for the image transfer process is paint, not ink, so that every layer and detail in the composition is painted.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Joe Ramiro Garcia, Keep Off the Grass, his first solo exhibition in New York and debut with the gallery. Garcia's paintings are narrative, derived from current events and inspired by art historical figures, while the imagery and palettes reference personal memories and emotions. Initially, the paintings appear Pop-inspired and a collaging of everyday, somewhat banal and often appropriated images. However, the paintings are highly technical in that they also incorporate a complex printing process to introduce certain imagery that provides not only layers of color and detail, but also content as a referent and/or memory trigger. The medium for the image transfer process is paint, not ink, so that every layer and detail in the composition is painted.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Julio Valdez, Water Paintings, in his first solo exhibition with the Gallery. The presentation includes a selection of 15 paintings created from 2012 through 2019 and one earlier painting from 2008 when the artist initially embarked on this ambitious and extensive body of work. The sizes of the paintings in this presentation range from 12 x 10.5 inches up to 54 x 76 inches. Some of the largest paintings were prepared for and included in the 58th edition of the Venice Biennale where Valdez represented the Dominican Republic.

David Richard Gallery is pleased to present Wax and Wane by Kevin Umaña, his first solo exhibition in New York and with the Gallery. This exhibition of 17 new artworks created during 2021 is part of a larger body of work comprised of five different, but related and interdependent bodies of works that differ by size, supports and media. The various bodies of work include: 1) seven large canvases made of acrylic and oil media that also include a range of additions that model and provide tactile and sculpted surfaces to the individual geometric shapes; 2) four smaller paintings that experiment with novel supports, media and additions to the media as well as specific geometric shapes and compositions that have a direct dialogue with the larger paintings; 3) two flat-ish glazed ceramic wall pieces; 4) two hybrid paintings with additions of flat glazed ceramic fragments adhered to the canvas and integrated within the compositions; and 5) one painted, wooden, free-standing sculpture on a pedestal.