David Schorr “Flying Carpets”

RYAN LEE

This event has ended.

RYAN LEE presents Flying Carpets, new paintings by David Schorr in his practiced technique of combining gouache and silverpoint on linen. With vibrant racecars and taxis zooming across the undulating forms of carpets, Schorr revisits childhood days spent playing on his grandmother’s Persian rugs. Trucks carrying paint tubes and brightly colored trains traverse intricate paisley designs, while toy planes soar midst coffee cans and mailing labels. In recreating this fantastical world, Schorr restores his youthful imagination.

In each painting, Schorr contrasts familiar toys from the mid-20th century with Caucasian prayer rugs and vintage ephemera that once hinted at the vast and exciting world beyond his grandmother’s Chicago home. From glass milk bottles to the turbaned genie on a tin coffee can, these household objects and steel toy vehicles recall an era before plastic, during an earlier day of commercial travel when the possibilities of adventure and discovery felt infinite.

The exhibition is accompanied by an artist book designed by David Schorr, featuring an essay by poet Jonathan Galassi.