John Evans “Breathing”

Gallery Henoch

This event has ended.

Gallery Henoch presents BREATHING, ten paintings produced over the last two years by artist John Evans. As the title for the exhibition suggests, these works evoke the meditative quality of the botanic gardens, which are their subject. The show will run from November 19 – December 12, 2020. The gallery is free and open to the public.

“It’s evident when looking at John Evans’ work that he is a painter completely enveloped in the process of painting. Waterlilies, a common visual trope in this body of work, float across the painted surfaces. At times they resemble hearts, at other moments they become simple ellipses, then still forms, only existing due to the surrounding paint that holds them in place. For an artist such as John Evans, the subject is less important than the act itself. He has used his artistic prowess to consistently delve into the world of painting, never tiring of the possibilities that can emerge from the unknown or from shifts in spatial planes. In each instance, the landscape is malleable, a vehicle for a painting —a way to recreate a world that might never be lived in.

What initially may seem to be moments of representation can also be construed as fabrications of memory or imagination. His landscapes, while inspired by veritable places, reflect dimensions of life that can only exist within the realm of painting. While the wonderment of where this place is might emerge, it will be less about where, than just admiring a space where colors sail and the ground is alive with marks. In that it is like a fish in a pond, lingering below the surface.” - Katy Diamond Hamer

John Evans received his MFA from Boston University under the tutelage of James Weeks, David Aronson, and Philip Guston. His first solo show with Gallery Henoch was in 1984. Works by John Evans are held in the permanent collections of several distinguished institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, MA, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA and the Houston Museum of Fine Art, TX, among others.