John Lurie

Anton Kern Gallery is pleased to announce the gallery debut of musician, actor, director and artist John Lurie. For this exhibition, the artist will present a selection of works on paper vibrant in color and somber in tone.

"I like to draw and paint. It is a river to me. I am not an Indian." -ˇ John Lurie.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1952, John Lurie moved to New York in 1976. With his brother, Evan, he formed the musical group The Lounge Lizards in 1978. Embedded in the frenetic downtown no-ˇwave scene, The Lounge Lizards drew their influences from jazz, classical, African and other ethnic music. In the mid-ˇ80’s he scored and starred in the cult classics, Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law. He has scored countless films and was nominated for a Grammy for his work on Get Shorty. In the late 90’s he directed and acted in his own TV series, Fishing With John, which has been described as "Jacques Cousteau on LSD."

John Lurie has been drawing and painting for 30 years. Illness and the unseemly nature of the music business have caused him to drift from music. For the last two years he has focused his full creative energies on painting. Naïve and bittersweet, his drawings bear the mark of an outsider, a quality present throughout his idiosyncratic career.