Email Page You must be logged in to send emails   Email Password Forgot your password? If you don't have a login yet, it's easy and fast to create one. Just click below. Close Window Add To Tour del.icio.us Facebook Digg Print Page

Ian Davis: Paintings

January 26, 2007- March 10, 2007

Ian Davis

Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects

535 W 22nd St

Ian Davis incorporates the systems and geometry of minimalism within a descriptive style of painting that is timeless in its simplicity. His first one-person show in New York includes twelve paintings produced within the past year as well as a large work on paper. An illustrated catalogue, featuring a conversation with the artist, will be published by the gallery on the occasion of this exhibition.

Favoring the depiction of entropic situations over specific narrations, in Davis’s universe systems crash and things fall apart. Whether populated or not (very often by groups of identically dressed men), all of his works retain a strong masculine presence, tinged by sardonic humor.

In Auditorium, hundreds of men sit in chairs, facing a central podium, waiting for the announcement that is never made or the leader who never appears. Two related works, Corporation and Doldrum, depict archaic industrial structures, the former a benign observation of what a factory does and the latter, a more sinister rendering of what a factory is.

Davis’s figures are iconic representations — soldiers in period costumes, prisoners in stripes, businessmen in skinny black suits — in which the uniform is a formal device that underscores his interest in ideas rather than individuals. Patterning and repetition are used to engender structure and meaning while providing the artist with a kind of trancelike process that enables him to become hypnotically involved in the act of painting itself.

Ian Davis was born in Indianapolis in 1972. He received a BFA in Painting at Arizona State University in 1994 and attended the Summer Residency Program at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2005. A one-person exhibition of his paintings took place in January 2006 at the Acuna-Hansen Gallery in Los Angeles. He has lived in San Francisco, Chicago, and Brooklyn and currently maintains a studio in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Art Reviews of Ian Davis: Paintings

New York Times March 2, 2007

Roberta Smith

"At a moment when art veers between the extremes of social volunteerism and images suitable for New Yorker magazine covers, the paintings in the solo debut of Ian Davis fall into the latter category. They are funny and fun to look at, and they make you think, but their fussy scale also makes them feel like big, clever illustrations that would be as effective in reproduction as on a wall...."

Books and DVDs related to artists in this show

Location   Gallery Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects Address 535 W 22nd St, 6th Fl New York (Chelsea) NY, 10011 United States Phone 212-255-8450 Fax 212-414-8744 Hours Tue-Sat 10-6 Nearby: All 10 galleries at 535 W 22nd St

© 2005-2008 chelseaartgalleries.com The information on this page is provided "as is", and might be incorrect, incomplete and/or out of date. The site owner makes no representation as to the accuracy of the information or its suitability for any purpose. The owner disclaims any liability for errors that may be contained therein. sitemap