NYAB Event - Jeff Muhs "Outliers"

Jeff Muhs "Outliers"

Cheryl Hazan Gallery

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Jeff Muhs' new paintings manifest the sublime and visionary in soft forms and glowing color that bring to mind a kind of internal weather. Outlier is a term first used to describe scientific data that extends beyond the usual curve. Malcolm Gladwell defines "Outlier" as things or phenomenon that lie outside of normal experience, high impact, hard to predict and rare events that are beyond the normal realm of expectations, extreme observations, unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence that collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences.

Muhs expands and reinterprets these ideas to convey in painting, extreme pictorial and chromatic depictions that can be considered aesthetic “Outlier’s. The underlying content of the paintings is akin to the psychological and emotional impact you might experience in seeing a car crash, a tsunami, or witnessing the birth of a child.

An unavoidable correlation to the Southampton landscape remains, with an atmosphere of light and turbulent sky. His subject matter is not based in pure abstraction. One work is evocatively titled Dam Break Analysis; others contain references to horizons, clouds and water.

Artists are at the forefront in processing our collective 21st century experience; in recognizing the way that spiritual disharmony is reflected in the earth’s disturbed atmosphere. One can’t help but admire Muh’s attempt to express a kind of cosmic awe in the face of present events.

Jeff Muhs was born in Southampton, New York on June 24th 1966. His father, an artist and third generation hunting and fishing guide, instilled in Jeff an intimate knowledge of their local natural environment. Thus the barrier beach of Long Island’s south shore would later become the heart of the inspiration for Jeff’s work. It was in these early years that Jeff; also a world champion sculptor first learned the art of wood sculpting from his father. It is this traditional and exacting art form that developed in Jeff a dedication and penchant for excellence he has carried throughout his life. From 1984 to 1988 Jeff attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, from which he received a Bachelors degree in Fine Art. It was there that he had his formal art training and developed the techniques and tastes that would later shape his artistic aesthetics. It was through his own analysis of art history and what he learned that Jeff began the evolution toward what his work constitutes today.

Muhs is largely known for his work as a painter, exhibiting in galleries, collections and museums nationwide. Continually inspired by the light and water and horizon that surround him, his painting has undergone an evolution from its beginnings of literal depictions of his environment, a journey of synthesis and simplification, roughly paralleling the history of twentieth century art.