Christian Rex Van Minnen, Jerry Kunkel, Jean Lowe

Robischon Gallery is pleased to present three concurrent solo exhibitions featuring paintings by Colorado/ New York artist Christian Rex van Minnen and Colorado/Kansas artist Jerry Kunkel, along with paintings and sculptural works by California artist Jean Lowe. Each distinctive exhibition on view highlights the artists’ shared provocative or darkly humorous stance while revealing their uniquely fearless observations on art, contemporary life and the tensions in-between. With an acute awareness of the absurd – whether manifesting as a mind-boggling commanding conflation of the grotesque and surreal, or subversively layered imagery of pop-cultural text with art historical figures, or taking shape as wry fictional tomes that satirize academic pretension and the ubiquitous world of self-help, each of the artist’s exhibitions skillfully dismantle the norm through their unrelenting wit and masterful technique.



Christian Rex van Minnen: Golden Memes

For his second solo exhibition, Robischon Gallery is pleased to present New York-based Christian Rex van Minnen’s “Golden Memes.” With his characteristic virtuoso, Old Master’s approach toward painting paired with his signature Surrealist distortions, van Minnen cultivates the intensely curious territory between the 17th C Dutch Golden Age as it meets the contemporary world – both with an expression of excess and the appropriation of all that is exotic. With a current global economy that allows for world-wide access, van Minnen likens this era’s lust for the material to the earlier lucrative Dutch trade of the goods, fruits and animals of colonized lands which were richly depicted in the trompe l'oeil masterworks of European painting. As his exhibition title suggests, the values and ideas disseminated through this specific period of painting now enjoy other avenues of communication and have become well-recognized cultural touchstones – the look of which he lavishly explores within his own painting. Whether in the form of a typical female nude, a glistening bunch of ripened grapes or a whole fresh fish, the transmitted ideas, or memes, become purposefully awkward or intentionally confusing in van Minnen’s paintings when experienced out of context. This in-between realm, outside of prescribed comfort zones is where Christian Rex van Minnen, immersed in a language of interference and dissonance, travels – employing intelligence, wit and a demanding painterly exactitude as his means of navigation.

The celebrated, still life subject matter of Dutch painters glorified the opulence of the wealthy merchant class – with its compositions teaming with elaborate ceramic or glass vessels overflowing with lemons, grapes or tulips, baked treats and an abundant buffet of seafood or meats – often freshly-killed. Known as “pronkstilleven,” this readily recognized style of painting becomes a vivid grotesquerie under van Minnen’s playfully wicked sensibilities in VOC Jellyfish Fry. The letters VOC stand for “Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie,” essentially the first Dutch capitalist brand – which appears in cursive behind the painting’s pointedly unnerving objects and on a small yellow frosted cake. Upon further viewing, the cake’s expected sweet-filling seems to have been replaced instead by a kind of bloody ooze – perhaps as an acknowledgement of the true cost of luxury. Discovered as well, is seemingly sticky, gelatinous covering of jellyfish dominating the banquet, while a slimy, tongue-lolling fish bloated in cartoony proportions sits alongside a burnt lemon and steaming coal embers. This beyond peculiar fish fry may metaphorically send the otherwise cherished ideals up in its ethereally painted smoke. Additional curiosities can be found – a recognizably-Dutch blue and white Delftware vessel is bulbously distorted as it rests amongst the drippings on a thick marble shelf, while on the opposite side, a pink and blue hospital baby blanket – standard for contemporary newborns – is entwined amidst the entrails, although it is clearly displaced in this potent conflation of images. While successfully achieving to paint in the mode of past Dutch artists, van Minnen overtly veers to the left as he offers a biting critique of excess that his artistic forebears did not.

Van Minnen’s painting entitled Google Gnostic emphasizes that images impart a shared cultural knowledge as much as the painting both celebrates and mocks our most often used contemporary means of obtaining knowledge: the internet. The six graphic letters of the search engine Google become a wildly bizarre and provocative mix of cartoon balloon worms, tattooed snake shapes, a torso-like form with dismembered limbs tattooed “YOUR MOM,” a bleeding octopus, hovering endangered Monarch butterflies and gaudy Easter eggs. Even the artist relied on Google’s services for an element of his painting entitled Eva Prima Pandora in order to obtain the information to translate its painted banner title. The artist was attracted to the randomness of an inaccurate Arabic translation of “Eva Prima Pandora” which is located above the reclining female figure. Van Minnen’s Eve/Pandora, stylistically appropriated from a 16th C Jean Cousins painting, dramatically suggests the potential chaos unleashed by “woman” – the “fallen” first woman of the Bible and the first human woman created by the Greek gods. The swirling magenta and purple surface of the figure, which also appears in other paintings throughout the exhibition, is representative of epicuticular wax, a substance found on certain plants and fruits on the surface of a ripened plum or grapes that when beaded with water, provided Dutch painters with a very challenging image to recreate in paint. Van Minnen speculates that the difficult to depict jewel-like quality of water-on-wax could have served as a test of a painter’s illusionistic prowess – a meme-like inside joke. With his painting entitled Epicuticular Wax, van Minnen vulgarizes the subject in both size and gesture, yet at the same time, it allows him to display his own considerable illusory painting talents.

The artist states, “Golden Memes” is inspired by and is in part an exploration of the Dutch Golden Age of painting where many technical and compositional aspects are unified and perfected. The use of oil paints as special effects, geometry, female nudes and grapes are amongst the more common memes, yet out of context, these memes are far more revealing. I love the aesthetic of interference and dissonance. In my work, tattoos, are a good example of that and have become an effective approach toward exploring three potential ways in which to read illusion; as the tattoo itself, the object itself and the relationship between the two. On a conceptual level, I am really interested in this space of confusion – and the inherent difficulty to really embrace a plurality of truth.”

Christian Rex van Minnen received a BA from Regis College and a Master’s degree from Regis University in Denver. He has been featured in numerous group exhibitions across the US and in Europe including Florida State University Museum of Fine Art, Seattle Pacific Arts Center, Biologiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, ISE Cultural Foundation, New York and ROJO Art Space in Barcelona, Spain with additional exhibitions in Hamburg, Germany, Copenhagen, Denmark and Sydney, Australia. An Artist-in-Residence at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, CO and an Artist’s Audition National Call winner, van Minnen has had numerous paintings and interviews frequently published in Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose and other publications along with a strong presence and considerable following on art blogs such as the Huffington Post and Beinart Surreal Art Collective, to name a few.



Jerry Kunkel: Descriptors

In his latest exhibition, longstanding Robischon Gallery artist Jerry Kunkel presents “Descriptors,” as an expansion on his homage to the great historical painters such as Albert Bierstadt, Francoise Boucher, Hendrick Goltzius and Adelaide Labille-Guiard, as well as an expressive side-glance at the nature of culture itself. Kunkel’s layered image and text paintings merge the contemplative with the terse – each presented as the individual works that they are, but also so that each one amplifies the meaning of the other. Kunkel’s expertly -rendered representations, or as the artist says, his “re-representations”, may mine clues from past paintings, but are reimagined in inimitable Kunkel fashion – as a contemporary insider art commentary inserting itself onto the well-vetted stage of those distinguished masters. While Kunkel may juxtapose contemporary and historical images to a revealing or humorous effect, such as a gooey peanut butter and jelly on white bread sandwich side by side a grappling, fleshy Rococo lovers in PB&J and Boucher, it is often the case that in other Kunkel paintings that his blocky typeface and contextual words or phrases are the layer that provides the twist. In combining aspects, Kunkel re-contextualizes every conveyed element of a painting from the time-honored and accepted symbolic interpretation to each considered brushstroke – even as the brushstrokes might be made to look as if from a modern paint-by-number kit. One such painting entitled Like which declares, Facebook-style, from its illusionistic plywood background that THIS PAINTING DOESN’T LIKE YOU. It overly antagonizes an otherwise banal experience of a snowy, rural scene. The seemingly unrelated quips and directives are intended to be alternately bewildering, amusing or allude to a deeper even profound meaning. While it may be true that such relatable statements by the artist such as Pretty Good Isn’t Always Pretty or How Do You Know What You Know begin in an initially clever mode, they can also pose a far more complex question to ponder.

The painting entitled Re-Pose, with the word itself painted on faux plywood via trompe-l’oeil, a constant in the artist’s visual vocabulary - offers Kunkel an opportunity to explore historical norms and cast a satirical light in three, small sections within one painting. The word “RE-POSE,” opposite a re-creation of a self-portrait by the late 18th C French artist Adelaide Labille-Guiard shown behind her easel takes on multiple meanings. Just the word itself may not only refer to the act of posing for the artist, but also to that which was required of or imposed on a female or a female artist of the period – the implications of a posed, dignified manner as something to re-think. Perhaps RE-POSE refers to the all-too-cheerful couple about to take rest or repose – with the woman tucked into her bed as tightly as a squirming child might be and the man, book in hand, implying an intellectual pursuit. Kunkel’s intent for meaning shifts within each composition, by utilizing proximity to a particular image or text. At the same, Kunkel’s additional homage to Labille-Guiard in the exhibition entitled Anonymous Painting re-represents her painting The Sculptor Augustin Pajou, but Kunkel chooses to use digitized, identity-obscuring squares over the subject’s facial features to grant his painted copy anonymity. Quizzically, the painted text states “THIS PAINTING IS APOLITICAL” which is a clever aside to a time when women artists made art that was solely attributed as being painted by “Anonymous” until feminist scholarship added woman artists to the annuls of art history with the scholarship itself standing in as a political act.

Kunkel’s work sparks inquiry; interpretations of each cultural collision presented are only limited by the time allowed for investigation, personal or otherwise. As in the artist’s work entitled Magical Thinking (Hendrick Goltzius), the painting resurrects “Big Boy,” the pudgy symbolic figure from 1950’s American fast food restaurant with his checkered overalls, slicked up swoop of a hairdo and big-eyed grin. By superimposing him over 17th C Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius’ painted Greek figures Jupiter and Antiope at the precise moment Jupiter takes the form of a lascivious satyr and readies to ravage the beautiful Antiope, Kunkel disrupts the powerfully charged image by the presence of his commercial American icon. Kunkel directly placed the advertising character over the most suggestive portion of the painting altering the meaning of “Big Boy’s” gluttonous gaze once meant only for fast food burgers into a more suggestive, leer of entanglement. Yet, the declaration of MAGICAL THINKING makes clear that like the viewer of all Kunkel’s thought-provoking works, “Big Boy” is only a modern-day observer left to muse on the historically portrayed carnal delights. Using images from the recent or distant past, Jerry Kunkel’s wry observational wit and astute word play are directed toward what the artist feels is a shared quest.

Kunkel states, “On good days, I believe we share a common appetite for self-reflection born of a collective and universal desire to comprehend, both physically and emotionally, the world around us. In that light, I am interested in our momentary reaction to everyday stimuli, that moment that summons a private response - a response that we may not feel compelled to share for a variety of reasons; perhaps because it doesn’t seem important, that our response is not fully formed, or we simply don’t care to think about why we really don’t care. Frequently we may perceive our first response to be simply unimportant, all too obvious, unoriginal, embarrassing, impolite, unnecessary, or just plain stupid. To respond may also cause us to question what we thought we knew to be true, verge on shameless sloganeering, or force us to take heed of yet another thing we seem to have taken for granted. However simple, self-protective, or diversionary the response, it can always be complicated upon closer examination, by changing a word, by questioning what we think we know and our attendant level of mindfulness, or by retracing our steps while trying to remember just where the F*** we left our keys.”

Jerry Kunkel is Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado. He has a BS from Ashland College and an MFA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His work is included in the Denver Art Museum, the Kirkland Museum, the Auraria Campus, Kansas University Hospital and numerous corporate and private collections. Kunkel’s paintings have been exhibited at the Denver Art Museum, Denver Biennial of the Americas, Mizel Center of the Arts and Culture, Akron Art Institute, Rochester Art Museum and Indianapolis Art Museum, among others. He recently published his first novel entitled The Phone along with a collection of short stories and observations, The Unmade Bed.



Jean Lowe: A More Beautiful You

In her first Robischon Gallery exhibition, noted California artist Jean Lowe offers a selection from two spirited series in a presentation entitled "A More Beautiful You." Known for her surprising and original approach toward her materials and subject, Lowe’s hand painted satirical auction posters, papier mâché fictional tomes and sarcastic self-help books, express a particular ideological snapshot of modern life. Often revealing a contemporary neurosis with narcissistic undertones, the artist’s libraries only masquerade as a home for the pursuit of knowledge. In keeping, the usual promise of most published books and the information contained within is forever off limits in Lowe’s world since her books can never be opened. The experience is all about the cover, as the featherweight faux books subvert the true heft and gravitas that a real book possesses. Like her parodies of auction house posters which are also on view, the books are equally cartoonish, though they become disarming by virtue of the artist’s salient observations. Lowe’s spoofs of popular-culture such as diet and fitness fads, or seemingly scholarly pursuits of collecting Old Master works or love letters, in essence explore the kind of value placed by both high and low culture when it comes to an absurd range of desired interests or money spent. Ridiculous and hilarious combinations offer a view of what is valued in a quick fix, anything-for-a-price consumerist culture; along with an inherent gullibility that there may be some benefit to the latest fads such as The Jesus Workout or Solutions to Traffic Jams and Stubborn Belly Fat, which is contained all in one book.

In Lowe’s library, the brightly painted covers sometimes belie their jarring titles; a beautifully painted still life of a severed fish head and multiple dead fish is entitled My Dearest Love while a children’s book with two adorable fluffy chicks is entitled E is for Edible and The Doubleday Illustrated Book of Greek Mythology for Children inappropriately pictures Leda and the swan which represents the incarnation of Jupiter about to force himself on the unsuspecting Leda. Equally surprising is the image of the awkwardly painted, voluptuous Venus of Willendorf selected to grace the cover of The Paleo Diet for Women since this is the kind of figure the would-be-buyer of such a tome would be trying to avoid. Scholarly titles such as Kinship, Status and Locality (in Contemporary Hell) or Torture Preparedness, offer intentionally misguided viewpoints of diabolically American intellectual pursuits perhaps best left unexamined, though shelved alongside the irreverently titled Get Thee Behind Me, Satan, a book which seeks heavenly deliverance from the hardly moral temptation of a luscious piece of rich devil’s food cake. While Lowe’s quirky imagery and laugh-getting titles work are effective in attracting viewers to the work, the artist’s underlying critique and layered meanings quickly slip through the reader’s defenses. Lowe states, “Being too obvious about my position can just be a turn-off, but with humor and approaching a subject obliquely, opens an avenue for conversation.”

The books and posters on view are part of an extensive vocabulary for the artist. Over the many years, Lowe has skillfully created satiric, self-reflexive, humorous works including constructed environments made entirely out of papier mâché and enamel paint to resemble an elaborate period, museum-like room, a faux auction house showroom and complex libraries composed of extensive papier mâché book shelves with a designated reading space complete with a hand-painted area rug and a fake papier mâché potted plant. From paintings reminiscent of Baroque palaces to rooms filled with faux merchandise from big box mega-stores, Jean Lowe both subverts and transforms the commonplace with as much vigor as she does examining the more rarified culture of art. Through her re-creations, Lowe slyly engages the viewer in what is real or true, but in the end, poses the bigger question of what has value and why.

Jean Lowe has a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego. She is the recipient of WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship in sculpture grant, A Pollock-Krasner Foundation award and a CalArts/Alpert Ucross Residency Prize among others. Lowe’s work is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA, San Diego Museum of Art Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla, CA, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, John Michael Kohler Arts Center and the California Center for the Arts Museum, Escondido, CA, among others and she has been exhibited at museums and galleries across the US and in European venues, as well.