JAMES BARSNESS: YOU BELONG HERE
New Paintings and Prototypes During April and May, the George Adams Gallery will present new paintings and sculptural prototypes by JAMES BARSNESS. The exhibition will feature seven new paintings and ten related mixed media objects all completed in the last year. Entitled You Belong Here, this new series is an inter-related narrative focused on the foibles of “civilized” society.
April 1 – May 15, 2004
Freely combining allusions to such artists as Bruegel and Bosch with references to popular culture, Barsness presents a series of complex social allegories. Barsness continues to render his compositions in ballpoint pen and brightly colored acrylics, overlaying his drawings onto densely collaged sheets of found paper - musical scores, xeroxes, and magazine pages - which are adhered to canvas. Further adding to the overall patterning in his compositions, each work has an intricately drawn and colored border, reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts and medieval tapestries.
The seven paintings in this exhibition (similarly sized 50 x 68 inches) present settings intended to foster social interaction -- a playground, a home, a community garden -- but instead of order chaos rules. For example “My Red House” depicts a red roofed house in cut-away, the inside and the outside populated by semi-clothed figures engaged in bacchanal activities. The house appears dwarfed by the amount of human activity. Similarly, “My Playground,” presents a child’s playground overrun with adults and mutant animals climbing trees and swinging from a jungle gym. In “My Garden,” Barsness alludes to the Garden of Eden and the fall of Adam and Eve with the garden’s inhabitants consumed by sex, dancing, and bodily functions. The painting “My Cage,” on the other hand, depicts several hybrid animals imprisoned in an ornate golden cage, perhaps for pursuing their desires.
For this exhibition, Barsness also introduces a series of small sculptures related to the paintings--several pairs of beaded and painted high-heeled shoes, a large-breasted woman and rabbit figure embracing, a hatted dog figure, among others. Barsness has created what he terms “prototypes”—objects that echo the fantasy driven paintings. “The Painter’s Heels” for example is a pair of high-heeled shoes (6 inches high) made of paper mache and covered in gold beads; each with a flume of multicolored hair emerging from the heel. Bordering on the fetishistic, the prototypes further explore the themes of excess and desire found in the paintings.
James Barsness: You Belong Here continues through May 15th. The gallery is open Tuesday – Saturday, 10am–6pm, Mondays by appointment. Images can be viewed on the gallery's website at www.artnet.com/gadams.html and on the Art Dealers Association website, www.artdealers.org.
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
May – June: Enrique Chagoya: New Paintings and Works on Paper
July – September: Joan Brown: Cardboard Constructions from the Early 1970s
October-November: Arneson and the Object organized by the Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University. Featuring sculptures and drawings by Robert Arneson, the exhibition explores the importance of the everyday object in the artist’s work.
