Gerald Davis "The Damned"
Salon 94 Freemans
This event has ended.
The Damned is the artist’s second show with the gallery. In his new work, Davis departs from his focus on adolescent memory and fantasy to explore a more grotesque, terrifying world of his “damned,” a rogues’ gallery of outcasts and other societal miscreants.
Davis’ new paintings stem from his interest in classical portraiture. The Virgin Mary appears as a disheveled urchin selling trinkets on the boardwalk in Venice Beach; she is both pathetic and serene. In The Sleepover, pre-adolescent boys are shaken by Davis’ version of the Venus. The Dollmaker is a self-portrait, with Davis serving as the subverted romantic ideal of the artist intent on his craft. The figures resemble the grotesqueries of late Goya.
While a triptych of drawings displays Davis’ continued use of a monochromatic palette, the new paintings are richer, bolder, and more colorful. The coolness of the earlier paintings is replaced here by a Rubenesque richness, a deft and painterly touch that belies the sometimes disturbing imagery.
[Image: Gerald Davis "Terrence" (2008) oil on canvas, 77 x 60 in. courtesy of the Artist and Salon 94]
Media
Schedule
from June 18, 2009 to July 17, 2009
Opening Reception on 2009-06-18 from 18:00 to 20:00