Skarstedt gallery is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Carroll Dunham Paintings on Wood 1982 – 1987. This exhibition will bring together, for the first time, a notable display of paintings made during this five year period. The paintings, all varying in size and painted with casein and dry pigment, combine fleshy, organic hues with psychedelic colors revealing the grain and crude nature of the wood, a muse for the paintings. Dunham let these fields of energy manifest in abstract and biological shapes appearing at times recognizable yet at the same time amorphous.
In 1983 Klaus Kertess described the aesthetic of these paintings as “self-hallucination which initially suggests a multiple organ transplant performed by a surgeon with a degree in Surrealism.” Although admittedly having drawn inspiration from the likes of Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dali, Dunham’s thought process was purely abstract. The sublime nature of the distinguishable figures in these paintings namely the phalluses (Fourth Pine, 1982-84), knobby nipples (Fifth Pine, 1984-85), the tree sprout (Untitled, 1984) allude to a primordial pool, an abstraction of consciousness and formation. In a recent interview regarding this body of work Dunham states, “I was obviously aware I was drawing phalluses (I wasn’t that far gone), but I saw them as symbols, almost as boundary markers, or maybe radioactive objects in a kind of natural environment.”
Born 1949 in New Haven, Connecticut, Dunham lives and works in both New York City and Connecticut. He has been the subject of numerous national and international one-man exhibitions, honored with a mid-career retrospective at the New Museum, New York in 2002 and received the Skowhegan Medal for Distinction in Painting in 2004. A complete survey of his prints will be on view at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts in May and a catalogue raisonné (1984 – 2006) of Dunham’s prints will be co-published with Yale University Press to coincide with the retrospective.
All fully illustrated catalogue and an in depth Q & A with artist Laurie Simmons has been made to accompany the exhibition.
This exhibition is produced in collaboration with Gladstone Gallery, New York.
For further information, please contact +1 212 737 2060 or info@skarstedt.com
In 1983 Klaus Kertess described the aesthetic of these paintings as “self-hallucination which initially suggests a multiple organ transplant performed by a surgeon with a degree in Surrealism.” Although admittedly having drawn inspiration from the likes of Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dali, Dunham’s thought process was purely abstract. The sublime nature of the distinguishable figures in these paintings namely the phalluses (Fourth Pine, 1982-84), knobby nipples (Fifth Pine, 1984-85), the tree sprout (Untitled, 1984) allude to a primordial pool, an abstraction of consciousness and formation. In a recent interview regarding this body of work Dunham states, “I was obviously aware I was drawing phalluses (I wasn’t that far gone), but I saw them as symbols, almost as boundary markers, or maybe radioactive objects in a kind of natural environment.”
Born 1949 in New Haven, Connecticut, Dunham lives and works in both New York City and Connecticut. He has been the subject of numerous national and international one-man exhibitions, honored with a mid-career retrospective at the New Museum, New York in 2002 and received the Skowhegan Medal for Distinction in Painting in 2004. A complete survey of his prints will be on view at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts in May and a catalogue raisonné (1984 – 2006) of Dunham’s prints will be co-published with Yale University Press to coincide with the retrospective.
All fully illustrated catalogue and an in depth Q & A with artist Laurie Simmons has been made to accompany the exhibition.
This exhibition is produced in collaboration with Gladstone Gallery, New York.
For further information, please contact +1 212 737 2060 or info@skarstedt.com