The Boys are Back in Town, The Romo Gallery (February 22 – April 12, 2008) The group show presents a series of recent paintings by ten talented young artists living and working in close proximity in the enclaves of Brooklyn. The group of artists include John Brainard, Jamison Brosseau, John Copeland, Joseph Hart, Wes Lang, Eddie Martinez, Brian Montuori, Russell Nachman, Ryan Schneider, and Brett Wilson. The main theme of the exhibit was to feature contemporary abstract artworks focusing on present social order and politics.
The featured art works of Paul Brainard at the exhibition were mostly abstract epresentations of contemporary elements and events. Many of his artworks features contents such as politics, religion, media, and to large extent the female pornography. This first painting, is titled, The President of the United States of America, 2008. This was done using oil on Linen, and its size is 55 x 40 inches. This composition is a very stylized representation of his view women in society. The emphasis of the painting is a large scaled stripping prostitute front and center in piece.
In the background, we see a smaller painting of a portrait of popular icon, politician and first lady Hillary Clinton. Other distinct images include two skulls seen around the prostitute. The rest of the painting is filled with a variety of subordinate and oddly random shapes and objects. Another piece is a drawing done by Brainiard follows on the same theme of politics and social order. This piece is titled, Decision 08 done by Paul Brainard in 2007. This was done using graphite on paper, sized 22 X 30 inches.
This drawing bears striking resemblance to the painting seen before. Again there is a prostitute positioned as the emphasis and the subject of the piece, with a smaller portrait of politician Hillary Clinton in the top left corner of the composition. The skull is also recurrent, this time, drawn translucently over the naked prostitute. There also a similar array of random letters, numbers and shapes. New images include junk foods and snacks, being a doritos bag and a box of donuts. Comparing both of Brainard pieces, some consistent elements come out.
Both had prostitutes as the subject matter, although the titles make implicit references to Hillary Clinton. Both had small portraits of Clinton and an ever recurring skull. Just by looking at these similarities, one could imply that the artist is trying to paradox the possibility of a first female resident in a society where women are commonly viewed as sexual objects. The repeating image of skull could imply death, fear, sin or corruption. This may be referring to the decay of the morals of society or the dying society we live in.
The random and confusing backgrounds of both pieces may imply a dysfunctional society. He may also be exposing the blur between perception and reality that seems to make this society dysfunctional. The next artist, I would like to feature is Eddie Martinez. Martinez is another contemporary abstract artist who focus on the everyday social life of us human beings. Most of his works at the exhibit contains a random array of everyday objects that seemingly characterize the way humans behave.
His works have a consistent element of confusion and simplicity. This first piece is titled, Risky Business, done in 2008. He used a mixed array of media on canvas, which was 40 X 30 inches. This painting features a stylized representation of random array of objects on a round table. He uses a collage of objects that can all be connected to gambling; these items include sunglasses, liquor,a pair of die, a few playing cards, a knife and a Champaign glass. The paint is applied thickly, creating rough textures in some areas.
The positioning of the objects resemble ancient Egyptian style hieroglyphics where the objects that are supposed to be closer to viewer appear lower in the painting. The background is a dark black, with visible paint strokes. The only seemingly out of place object in the painting is the Smurf character who appears on top of a bottle holding a cup of beer. The Smurf appears to be very happy and possibly drunk. The exact meaning of this character is unclear but it throws the meaning of the peace into a state of confusion.
