Paintings and drawings by Biff Elrod will be exhibited in his first one person show in New York since 1987. INQUIRIES explores the universal emotive inner life drawn from a great city.
As a resident of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, with a special focus on the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park, these works represent their subject matter of urban landscape reconfigured into a personal mind-scape. The visual language of painting and photography combined serves as the basis for Elrod‘s painting style.
One of Elrod’s goals is to define, and provide, what has been the utility of the painted image through out history: human context. The intent of Elrod is to produce an image that can be useful in the emotional life of the viewer. Response to so many images of people and places that seek to establish familiarity by identification, by engagement, tells us that within this interactive dynamic lies something essentially human and necessary. Community comes in many forms but Elrod has captured a specific New York community. At least collectively, we require some variety of reflection. The "transformed reality" of these images is filtered through Mr. Elrod's direct experience and sensibilities. “Real feelings and intentions, like it or not, flow into the work. Authenticity, rather than “striking a pose’, will always be evident in the work itself, " states Elrod.
Biff Elrod has been exhibiting in New York City as a resident since 1974,and nationally since 1970. Living first in Greenwich Village and then Soho from 1976 until 1996, his work has appeared in the form of gallery exhibitions, public art, and in feature, Hollywood films and the original "Miami Vice" television series. As well, his paintings are included in private collections, corporations, and museums throughout the USA., including The National Civil Right Museum, Memphis, Tennessee, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Brown University Paul B. Pizzatola Building, Providence, Rhode Island, Merck, Inc., Rahway, New Jersey and Prudential Insurance Company of North America, Chicago, Illinois.
INQUIRIES will be on view at 780 Madison Avenue, 4B by appointment only, through December 15.
