Jack Walls “Black/White Paintings”

Hionas Gallery LES

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Hionas Gallery presents Jack Walls: Black/White Paintings. The famed painter and poet, often referred to as his generation’s “inside outsider,” has been a constant presence in New York’s downtown art scene and a source of inspiration—both directly and peripherally—for countless contemporaries for more than three decades. For this show, Walls presents a limited series of new two-tone paintings composed of gestural abstractions and morphic forms. In keeping with these austere pieces, the gallery will present four select paintings, one per room.

These latest minimalist compositions by Walls suggest a more concentrated rendition of action painting, in which the formal and tonal structure of each portrait are at once rigid and fluid. This approach to the canvas casts a visual energy that is quite palpable for the viewer; each angular gesture, each broad brushstroke or subtle deviation all interact with one another to wondrous effect. Walls’ portraits comprise built forms, premediated and almost calligraphic, yet never lose that sense of visual depth that is inherent to portraiture.

Chicago-born artist Jack Walls has been a vital figure in the New York art world for more than 30 years. While his visual work primarily focuses on painting and collage, Walls is also a writer, poet and performer. In his early years in the city, Walls lived with his partner and sometime collaborator Robert Mapplethorpe until the artist’s untimely death in 1989. Since then Walls and his multidisciplinary work have inspired a new generation of downtown artists. The artist lives and works in Hudson, New York.