The reception was pretty great; there was a good crowd, a tangle of bikes outside, and it was my first time seeing Julian since he was involved in producing last year's JellyNYC pool parties (PS, I heard this summer's lineup is shaping out to be hot fire).
Here's an explanation of the collection, in his words:
This new collection of work reflects my passion for painting together with an experimental video titled International Instructional Video Series, which in my mind acts as the sour cherry on top of TEEN ANGST. The exhibition title seemed like the best way to describe my feelings toward the compositions as a whole, boasting a hyper-color palette, fluorescent pigments, and permanent marker. Each painting is a thorough exploration in hasty mark making, meaning, investigational or instantly gratifying marks with radical variations in surface quality and finish. The addition of inscriptions into the work references themes or brands popular among the youth demographic such as Google, scum, Coke, Four Loko, Apple, etc., which I attempted to render in adolescent style graffiti within the backgrounds of each cluttered abstract still life.I sadly got there too late to buy the piece I had my eye on (the girl who did get her hands on it was really cute and nice, so I couldn't even be mad), but had a blast ducking in to check it all out and say hi. The show is mostly paintings, with two installations (one of them video). Trippy and visually-stunning stuff; I've always been a fan of his blend of surrealism and still life. Get thee to Yes Gallery (147 India Street in Brooklyn) for some TEEN ANGST while you still can ^^
Most of the lumber used to build each painting surface comes from discarded or found materials, which I hand crafted into gallery style panels, and applied synthetic materials such as acrylic paint, aerosol, marker etc. This aesthetic, along with exposing raw elements of the construction on the surfaces calls attention to the materials in a Modernist sense reflecting the faux Earth conscious, here today–gone tomorrow, shabby- chic, bipolar, lazy, medicated, aloof, spastic and utter lackadaisical TEEN ANGST I have observed in art/design school and popular culture over the last few years.
