STARSKY BRINES

29 May 2019 (New Orleans, LA)JONATHAN FERRARA GALLERY is pleased to announce the premier solo exhibition of Venezuelan artist Starsky Brines. Currently working in Miami, the artist has created ten new paintings in his characteristic neo-expressionist portraiture and narratives. His large canvases are vibrant, colorful, gestural and, at times, abstract. The exhibition will be on view from 18 July through 30 August 2019 with an opening reception coinciding with the Arts District of New Orleans’ (ADNO) First Saturday Gallery Openings on Saturday 3 August from 5-10 pm in conjunction with Hancock Whitney White Linen Night, an artful block party which attracts upwards of 50,000 patrons to Julia Street.

The artist discusses this suite of paintings…

I searched for artworks that were available for an exhibition. I selected works at random in my studio. Many of them were made without thinking of a show or project of any kind. They came to life from my very elemental desire of creating – an instinct that allows me to paint like a supreme order. The bunch of works chosen looks formidable to me. After taking a careful glance at the selection, I realized a fresh, heterogeneous compound and found out that it is for me more difficult to make a reading of the selected works when I try to outline an exhibition than just making a spontaneous interpretation of what I have done out of the plain purpose of painting like it was in this case. I came up with a fresher reading on the details of which I was not aware when I just finished the works, which go beyond the exercise of painting and the unexpected interactions amongst themselves.

The complicity amongst the works creates a coherence that I like and appreciate. These are works unique and linked to their own sense and complement each other. They create a dialogue between colors and stories like a storyboard. Each artwork might represent a scene of an absurd story that tells about our human condition tied to our animal condition. For me, these works reflect our mortal awareness and vulnerability, and reproduce us the way a child would represent an adult: grotesque, amorphous, battered, like the result of a heart- driven- honest depiction. These are works celebrate life because they know of their limited material lives.

I realized that my works that will be shown in New Orleans give insights of my understanding of art in a emotional, intuitive and expressive way, thus revealing my point of view about the world where I and my works create the center. They show that they are in brotherhood and belong to each other. They reveal it because they are actually one of the same.