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Email PageRoy De Forest: A Memorial Exhibition
January 4, 2008- February 16, 2008
Roy De Forest
George Adams Gallery
525 W 26th St Roy de Forest Hog Farm (2001) |  Roy de Forest Silas Newcastle Goes Down (1966) |
The earliest work in the current exhibition is a construction/painting from 1961. Measuring only 14 x 13 inches, this entirely abstract work sets the standard for the work to come with its encrusted paint, heavily textured surface and painted frame. Two early drawings and two large-scale paintings, ³A Bird In Hand² and ³The Silas Newcastle Goes Down,² from 1965 and 1966 respectively, capture the artistıs transition from abstraction to figuration and establish DeForestıs use of multi-layered, simultaneous narratives. In ³A Bird In Hand² one also finds an early example of DeForestıs favorite subject: the dog.
DeForestıs works of the 1970s are typically exuberant narratives set in animated, often anthropomorphic, landscapes. An untitled drawing from 1976 included in the exhibition features a red devil and a cowboy firing his six shooter surrounded by a host of dogs and rabbits of various size, the entire scene rendered in an agitatedly cubist style with lines and markings in colored pencil careening wildly across the page.
During the 1980s DeForest relied less on multi-layered narratives and began to focus on singular scenes. In a drawing from 1981 included in the current exhibition, a hiker, accompanied by his trusty dog, peacefully hikes a mountain range formed from breasts topped by erect nipples. In ³Campout,² a large canvas from 1985, DeForest paints a night scene of a camper surrounded by his dogs and wildlife just outside the firelight, a scene lit from above by an overly large full moon.
The exhibition also includes paintings and drawings from the last decade. Several of these works find their subjects in DeForestıs own adventures, including regular family summer camping trips to Yosemite or more exotic locals such as Patagonia. One example, ³Black Horse Meadow,² 2004-2005, is a large shaped canvas that features, among other elements, horses, a bull, a rabbit, Chilean gauchos and a life-size crow projecting off the upper right corner of the framer. Similarly, ³Camp Monet,² a monumental drawing with an elaborate artist made frame from 1991, depicts a mountain scene with a central figure (the artist) driving a dog-led wagon with his palette dangling from the rear.
The works in the show, combined, capture the intensity, superb draftsmanship and richness of DeForestıs work over the last 40 years. They also establish DeForest as a truly original artist who freely combined reality with fantasy throughout his career. He developed and reveled in a world of his own imagination unlike any other artist of his time.
The exhibition will be on view through February 16th. In order to best represent DeForestıs achievements, works will be rotated in and out during the exhibition.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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George Adams Gallery was last updated: 2008-10-11
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