Joyce Pensato Exhibition
Petzel Gallery
This event has ended.
In her exhibition of new charcoal drawings, Joyce Pensato returns to her iconic muses: Mickey, Donald, Felix the Cat, Homer, and Stan from South Park. These typical Warholian pop images are transformed through the act of Pensato's drawing. Broken down to their most basic forms, the pop cartoon faces and bodies manifest as a series of swooping circles and slashed lines. This is Pensato's starting point. By taking the image virtually by force, Pensato grinds, slashes and rubs the pastel and charcoal into the surface then sands in an Erased Dekooning style leaving the cloth fibers of heavy-stock watercolor paper exposed by the ware and tare. The violence and massive energy of the artist's hand eliminates the status of the familiar pop image. Pensato infuses the expressive language of abstraction into these popular icons creating animated hybrids and frankensteins of the original. These various characters are transformed into psychological states that can be best described by the titles given: Abdominal Mickey, Evil Stan, The Donald.
[Image: Joyce Pensato "Splitting Hairs" (2008) charcoal and pastel on paper 59.25 x 40.125 in.]
Media
Schedule
from November 21, 2008 to January 03, 2009
Opening Reception on 2008-11-21 from 18:00 to 20:00