NYAB Event - Willem Andersson "Is the house still on fire"

Willem Andersson "Is the house still on fire"

Nancy Margolis Gallery

This event has ended.

Andersson works with graphite and paint on canvas, paper and wood. With a distinct style and expression, his paintings and drawings are an unusual narrative poetically depicting the social structures we follow in the home, workplace, and everyday life. Meticulously detailed, his work draws the viewer into a surreal world of haunting images: a uniformed man with a bandaged face, billowing smoke from burning buildings, odd bulbous formations, people half submerged in water. In the painting “Onlookers,” which inspired the title of the exhibition, Andersson paints on wood panel with exposed grain, a grim scene of a burning house as a motionless crowd observes. It is almost as if we are in the back of the group mesmerized, watching the rhythmically drawn curlicues of smoke waft out the windows as this shocking scene unfolds. The interaction between Andersson’s solemn characters and his dark and unsettling scenes, poignantly reference his critical view of society. Deftly composed, in his own inimitable style, Andersson’s compelling narrative and challenging ambiguities leaves the viewer on his or her own to unravel and interpret the story.