Gregory Johnston "Passepartout"
Stephen Haller Gallery
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Stephen Haller Gallery presents GREGORY JOHNSTON: Passepartout, new paintings of the artist's signature style – suggestions of calligraphic gestures (described by critic George Melrod as "icons of textual beauty") within a canvas divided into formal, almost architectural drawing.
The title, Passepartout, refers to a framing device, a master key, or something that provides a universal means of passage. Johnston states “Passepartout is a metaphoric concept that I have long attempted to broach in painting – that of both a universal concept in composition and execution in design, as well as the philosophy of transforming a two dimensional plane of canvas to one of multi-dimensional depth.”
Johnston creates pictures within pictures and strives for dimensionality through layers and composition. The hint of an image appears to surface through layers of translucent color. There is a mysterious luminosity in Johnston’s work; his paintings are noted for their lush, gorgeous surfaces.
The work also resonates ideas from Jacques Derrida’s Truth in Painting. Stimulated by Derrida's discourse on passé-partout, Johnston’s own interest in “the idiom of painting” manifests itself in the tension between the painterly gesture and the edges of the compositional architecture.
These new paintings represent the maturing work of an artist The Wall Street Journal heralded as “one of the emerging success stories of his generation.”
[Image: Gregory Johnston "Passepartout V" (2009) Oil, alkyd on linen, 72 x 72 in.]
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Schedule
from February 19, 2009 to March 28, 2009