Wayne Herpich “New Vision Display”

Blackston

poster for Wayne Herpich “New Vision Display”

This event has ended.

Blackston presents New Vision Display, Wayne Herpich’s first solo exhibition in New York.

Herpich’s highly original, accomplished, rigorous and dense mid-sized oil paintings employ a rich use of color and pigment, combining free-form painting techniques and art historical references. The artist splits the plane and confounds classical relationships in painting with a horizontal application of zig zags which cover the entire surface of the canvas. Pattern, negative space, bright coloration and layering operate in opposing, gravity-defying, confounding and dissonant fashion to create compelling, somewhat baroque, patterned, yet decidedly complex works.

In the rear of the gallery Herpich presents a series of more somber abstract portraits, which abandon the figure yet hint at representation.

Herpich’s paintings are liberated from assignation, but their richness and complexity is the result of a deep and continued exploration of the medium: “I [want] to arrive at form and nuance without delineation…I like to entertain other disparities: East-West, Florentine-Venetian, Abstraction-Figuration. It keeps me uncomfortable.”

Herpich was born in Torrington, CT in 1944 and lives there presently: “Entered Pratt Institute to study industrial engineering. Switched to a fine art school after 1 year. Slowly began to think of myself as an artist. Received BFA degree in 1967. Entered Yale School of Art and Architecture. Met Al Held. An unproductive period. Marry Cynthia Feldberg in 1968. A MFA in 1969. Moved to Eastern Pkwy, employed at New Vision Display on 23rd Street. Made a series of 8 x 10 ft. acrylic abstractions. Showed six on Leonard Street in 1971. Took time off and moved to a lakeside cottage and made my (a personal landmark) black to white abstraction. Move to Broome Street in ‘71 and make “life size” tree painting to answer the black to white. Meet Richard Bellamy. Move to a small farmhouse in Winchester, CT. First of 5 children bom while employed as a general laborer in a bearing factory. Start a series of large enamel on duck paintings made in a field. Perhaps an homage to Pollock and Louis. Painted regularly and took odd jobs as tattoo artist, house painter, landscape laborer. Established several main areas of consistent effort. These are: tiny clay sculpture and tiny matching drawings; full figure and full face portraits; tiny colored oil paintings; 4 ft. sq. oil paintings; rope sculptures; various types of the black on duck NYC paintings and a 15 year long series of flower scroll photographs…I worked my way from labor to machine setter on 6 spindle automatic screw machines and then tool designer before retiring and returning as a third shift security guard. Started the present 4 ft. sq. paintings in earnest on retirement.”

Media

Schedule

from January 23, 2014 to February 20, 2014

Opening Reception on 2014-01-23 from 18:00 to 20:00

Artist(s)

Wayne Herpich

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