NYAB Event - Alain Bonder Exhibition

Alain Bonder Exhibition

511 Gallery

This event has ended.

511 gallery presents the return of Montreal painter, Alain Bonder, to New York in a solo exhibition of his newest series, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. This most recent exhibition is comprised of twenty equally sized portraits of faces, including some in profile. The subjects are rendered in both charcoal and acrylic, floating in the center of purely negative space. As in his previous works, Bonder beautifully marries drawing and painting, producing soft lines with minimalist contrast.

These mostly monochromatic figures are composed almost identically to each other, with only slight variations between them. Therefore, each lonesome character appears to be a frame on a film reel. When the shots are considered together, they seem to flicker into subtle motion. Bonder produced the paintings through painstaking repetition, much like the process of filmmaking. By redrawing his subjects freehand, Bonder grew to know intimately the mental and physical cramping of such incessant repetition, much like the source of carpal tunnel syndrome. As Bonder describes, "The series is a string on a finger more than anything else-a reminder of that daily repetitive rut we forget is there even while we're in it. Carpal tunnel was my method and its result."

Though Bonder's previous canvases have usually been minimalist, their compositions tended to be more abstract and loud. The composition of each painting of Carpal Tunnel Series is much simpler, while the mood remains complex. Bonder has isolated each character in space, with only a painted doily hovering above their heads or bound by strokes of black charcoal across their eyes or mouths. The result of this has been an incredibly cohesive exhibition, in which the subjects are denied their natural means of expression and thus, must do so much more subtly. In this way, the figures of these portraits seem to be trapped in the world of a silent film, engaging the viewer in their quiet, intriguing drama.