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Moore College
of Art and Design |
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Frank
Bramblett:
Paintings November 17, 2000 - January 21, 2001 |
| Opening
Reception : Friday, November 17 6:30–8:00 pm Gallery talk : Wednesday, November 29 - 6:00 pm Frank Bramblett’s explores the ways that memory, narrative, and sensation can be abstracted, universalized, and layered onto the painted surface. The exhibition presented the Levy Gallery for the Arts in Philadelphia comprises several large-scale paintings and more than twenty small painted sketches—the first one-person exhibition in Philadelphia dedicated to the work of this artist, who was recently awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Bramblett’s paintings have been evolving since the late sixties; his experiments with process have led him to combine ancient encaustic techniques with the latest polymer formulations. He literally constructs his surfaces through layering, sanding, and drilling. The results are intricate, finely tuned, irresistible, and often hard-edged. His textures range from the slick to the rough; his palette from the monochromatic to the gaudy. The paintings offer glimpses of the recognizable—fruit, plants, trees—and Bramblett often revisits representations of these objects in order to make them resonate anew, both formally and symbolically. He also sometimes literally weaves a story, presenting a written narrative directly on and throughout the canvas. The layering process is one that involves time; many of the paintings are reworked over a period of several years to chronicle a sequence of encounters. His sometimes peripatetic paintings are unified by their underlying intention to allow the viewer multiple readings. In his series of small canvases, which often incorporate a photograph, Bramblett demonstrates his thought process. Using a snapshot as his point of departure, he creates a diagram of colors, forms, and surfaces-matching life with painterly experience. The small sketches create an index of his visual language, a table of contents for his larger works. In his paintings, Bramblett builds spaces for interpretive possibilities and multiple implications of content and context. His fluid formal language creates visual puns that underscore the transformative effects of the two-dimensional canvas. Featuring significant examples of his recent work, the exhibition illustrates the relationship between Bramblett’s concept and process and allows the viewer an introduction to this painter’s oeuvre. |
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see the Levy Gallery's previous show >> |
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