David Constable and Rory MacArthur

"drawings + paintings"

David Constable and Rory MacArthur
Opening reception
Friday October 20th 6- 10pm.
Exhibition continues through Sat. Dec 2nd.
Hours Sat noon – 5pm or by appointment.

Located between abstraction and figuration David Constable's paintings fuse traditional portrait making with the digital information age. Constable accumulates images from the media, superimposing fleeting faces on appropriated highway maps. Confident brush strokes and striking tones blur reality. White highlights bounce from implied features, smears of red hint at lips, slashes of black allude to a frozen gaze. Constable skillfully defines planes but eschews detail, shrouding each subject in pixilated anonymity. Firmly in the camp of abstraction Rory MacArthur makes sculptures and reliefs that render visually the aural experience of electronic music. For MacArthur Abstraction makes sense, it works as a vehicle for communicating phenomenological experience. The finished work begins as a sketch, either pencil on paper using sine wave templates (a purely formal choice but an amusing coincidence? when considering his original reasons for pursuing abstraction i.e sine wave = sound wave = pictorial representation of sound). The drawing is transferred into the third dimension by carving styro foam and covering in resin. This support is painted to emphasize or undermine the physicality of space creating a visual dis-orientation which relies on the illusionistic qualities of color. The intended result: a phenomenological, post-industrial mutant hybrid or something.

Both David Constable and Rory MacArthur have been friends since art school. This exhibition is the first instance these two artists have shown together. Constable and MacArthur both studied for their undergraduate degrees at Grays School of Art, Aberdeen, Scotland, 1985-89 and subsequently studied for their MFA from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL.

Based in Norton, Virginia Constable is an Adjunct instructor at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. Recent exhibitions include ‘Marginal’ at The University of Seville, Department of Architecture. Seville, Spain and a site specific installation in the John Cooke Wyllie Library, UVA-Wise, The University of Virginia’s College at Wise. Wise, VA.

MacArthur lives and works in New York, recent exhibitions include ' The difficult shapes of possible images' curated by Douglas Melini, Ziehersmith gallery, NYC 2006, ‘Pantone’ curated by David Hunt, Massimo Audiello, NYC 2004, Kenny SchachterconTEMPorary, NYC 2003, Art Resources Transfer, NYC, ‘Tensionism’ curated by Kenny Schachter,
NYC 2002.

Contact: Phone: 773-837-9809
E-mail:info@gardenfresh.org
GARDENfresh
840 West Washington
2nd fl. Chicago, IL 60607
Gallery hours: Saturdays noon-5pm or by appointment