JONATHAN FERRARA GALLERY is proud to announce Invisible Ping, new paintings and collage by artist BRIAN GUIDRY. The exhibition will be on view in the main gallery from 1 through 31 October 2015 with an opening reception on Saturday, 3 October from 6-9pm. For his debut solo exhibition at the gallery, Guidry unveils a suite of work three years in the making. Seemingly digitally produced with their stark lines and pulsating hues, his paintings portray an abstracted view of nature. Guidry creates a duality in the exhibition with the inclusion of his representational collages. The still life imagery in these works tussle with the graphic cut-lines of the artist’s hand, echoing the lines in the paintings. The collages offer a reference point for the paintings; working in tandem to share a view and experience of the unseen, an Invisible Ping.
Guidry says of his work . . .
The invisible world around us is not what it seems. Surreal and sometimes bordering on science fiction, my work seeks to illuminate this invisible landscape of energy pathways. I see these conduits as they relate to modes of communication, transportation, locomotion and concrete spaces. I have always had a tendency to create artwork that is in some sense a recording of these imperceptible subjects, whether physical or conceptual.
Many of my works begin as an idea —a kernel of information, a flaw or imperfection that precipitates growth. I usually work on several bodies of work concurrently, each emerging with its own media and process.
In my paintings I use a very specific color palette sampled from a wide variety of natural sources in the landscape/environment and from flora in particular: reflections from water, festering storm clouds, fronds, sugar cane, exhausted foliage, flowers, lichens, soil... The colors, which I rigorously match, are blended on-site (plein-air). The samples are then taken into the studio where I mix larger quantities of these matched colors. I use these colors as my primary palette and have a collected hundreds of samples. By injecting these "natural" colors into the geometric planes and constructions, the created shapes and voids suggest portals and slips in time and space where the viewer is lead over the precipice of the normal, into the magical realism of the uncanny, peculiar and quantum.
Collage has also always been a part of my art making practice. The floral “re-arrangements” are constructed from found lithographs, which are cut up and “re-arranged”. These re-arrangements stem from a fascination with still life painting, vanitas and imagery alike. My intentions are not to create perplexing symbolism but rather to exploit the colors, shapes and textures of these cut-up lithographs to create an anomaly that speaks to our memories and reconstructed experience. Perhaps these arrangements also function as receivers and transmitters of information, not unlike the artificial trees and cacti along the highways which double as radio and communication devices.
A native of South Louisiana, Brian Guidry was born in New Iberia, Louisiana. He earned his BFA from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and his MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Selected exhibitions include; The Bronx Museum in New York; Gana Art Space, Seoul, Korea; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans; The Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans and the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan. His work has been featured and discussed in The New York Times,Time Out Chicago, Art Forum, The Times-Picayune, Gambit Weekly, Pelican Bomb, and New American Paintings. His work is in the collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art; The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA.; National College of Arts--Lahore, Pakistan; New York Public Library, New York, NY; Pratt Institute Library, Brooklyn, NY; and Paul & Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, Lafayette, LA. He lives and works in Lafayette, Louisiana and is represented by Jonathan Ferrara Gallery.
For more information, press or sales inquiries please contact the gallery director Matthew Weldon Showman at 504.522.5471 or email matthew@jonathanferraragallery.com.
