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Waiting: Brian Calvin

Past exhibition
October 29 - December 5, 2020
  • Overview
  • Installation Views
  • Works
  • Press
Overview
Brian Calvin Composite Sketch, 2020 Acrylic on linen 40 x 30 in (101.6 x 76.2 cm)
Brian Calvin
Composite Sketch, 2020
Acrylic on linen
40 x 30 in
(101.6 x 76.2 cm)

Anton Kern Gallery is pleased to present Waiting, Brian Calvin’s seventh solo exhibition in New York. Faces abound, energizing the first and second floor galleries with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and varnished lips. The cool neutrality of their expressions brings an equal and opposite force; a stillness to the space. Otherworldly as they are, this group of 23 new works cannot be untangled from the time within which they were created. These paintings were born out of the global pandemic, which brought life as normal to a halt. 

 

Life as a painter in Ojai, California, is solitary. The isolation of the Ojai Valley provides a lifestyle that dovetails nicely with Calvin’s daily painting process. However with the forced suspension of his routine due to the lockdown, isolation took on a new meaning. It presented time to reexamine self-imposed boundaries in his work, including what it means to paint a figure. 

 

Calvin turned a corner as he developed ideas for paintings in his sketchbook, giving himself permission to propose things in a picture that don’t make sense. Activating techniques from synthetic Cubism, he played freely with color, texture, viewpoint, and plane, bringing spontaneity and urgency to his images. His newly unfettered imagery broke through naturalism and entered the unreal. 

 

Time is at once objectively and subjectively measurable. A person’s reflection in a mirror is similar. During a prolonged period of precarity, the interior comes into focus and is ripe for distortion. In works such as Delayed Reaction and Composite Sketch, there is a sense of motion blur or double vision, each face having two cascading sets of eyes and lips. In Composite Self and Passing Thoughts, forlorn faces with five o’clock shadows (possible stand-ins for the painter) allude to mortality and the passage of time. 

 

In addition to optical play, the viewer is also drawn to examine the relations of figures within a single painting. In Waiting I and Waiting II, groups of women stand still in an abnormal formation: their faces are in profile, yet their eyes stare out at the viewer. Anxious intensity approaches the brink of claustrophobia in Committee and Goodbye Kiss. Interlocking portraits such as Full Circle counter with balance and calm. Canvases split with dual faces resemble “best friends” heart necklaces, two complementary shapes that form a whole. 

 

Brian Calvin (born in 1969 in Visalia, California) is an American artist who lives and works in Ojai, California. He received his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992 and his M.F.A from The Art Institute of Chicago in 1994. 

 

His work is included in the public collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; Portland Art Museum, Portland; the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach; and the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 2015 his work was the subject of a mid-career survey exhibition entitled End of Messages, was debuted at Le Consortium, Dijon, France, and then travelled to the Mu.ZEE in Ostend, Belgium. In 2018, the artist was invited to create a special solo exhibition at the Met Opera, inspired by Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte. Recent group exhibitions include Drawing 2020, Gladstone Gallery, New York; Sympathetic Magic, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; and REFLECTIONS II curated by Matt Black, at the GANA Art Center, Seoul (2020).

Download Press Release
List of Works
Installation Views
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring paintings with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and more.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring three works.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring multiple works that showcase Calvin's eccentric use of bright color.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting showcasing two of the artist's composite figures.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring paintings with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and more. This image showcases Calvin's work "Committee."
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring paintings with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and more. Two large-scale works featured.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring paintings with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and more. Many works shown.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring paintings with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and more. This image displays "Edmeshed" one of Calvin's few paintings that refrain from graphic color.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring paintings with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and more. Two works presented in this shot.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring paintings with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and more. Two works presented here.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring paintings with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and more. Two small rectangular works next to one of Calvin's circle canvases.
  • installation view of Brian Calvin's Waiting featuring paintings with hyperbolic color, mosaic eyes, and more. Two works featured.
Works
  • Brian Calvin Another Couple, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Another Couple, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Committee, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Committee, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Woman Waiting, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Woman Waiting, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Waiting II, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Waiting II, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Waiting Woman II, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Waiting Woman II, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Waiting I, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Waiting I, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Composite Sketch, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Composite Sketch, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Scene Stealer, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Scene Stealer, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Delayed Reaction, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Delayed Reaction, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Reappearance, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Reappearance, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Minor Difference, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Minor Difference, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Enmeshed, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Enmeshed, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Recession, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Recession, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Full Circle, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Full Circle, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Simple Twist, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Simple Twist, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Waiting II, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Waiting II, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Composite Self, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Composite Self, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Woman Waiting, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Woman Waiting, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Waiting I, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Waiting I, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Goodbye Kiss, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Goodbye Kiss, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Couple, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Couple, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Land of the Living, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Land of the Living, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Holding Pattern, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Holding Pattern, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Passing Thoughts, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Passing Thoughts, 2020
  • Brian Calvin Close Likeness, 2020
    Brian Calvin
    Close Likeness, 2020
Press
  • The Waiting Game

    Evan Pricco, JUXTAPOZ, December 23, 2020
    This link opens in a new tab.
  • The Everlasting "Waiting" Game: New Works by Brian Calvin @ Anton Kern, NYC

    Evan Pricco, JUXTAPOZ, October 30, 2020

Related artist

  • Brian Calvin

    Brian Calvin

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16 East 55th Street

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