American Genre: Contemporary Painting at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art in Portland, ME is a survey of contemporary art exploring the role of three historical painting genres as a framework of knowledge for understanding and contextualizing contemporary painting practices.
When I attended the show’s opening back in July, I felt a tremendous sense of humility and gratitude to see my painting, Swimmer (2017), hanging alongside the work of some of my favorite painters working today.
On Friday, September 15th the Institute will host a daylong symposium and panel discussion featuring a handful of participating artists and writers, along with the critic Barry Schwabsky and the show’s curator, Michelle Grabner.
For further information on the show, click here: https://www.meca.edu/event/american-genre-contemporary-painting-exhibition/ For information about the symposium on September 15, click here: https://www.meca.edu/event/ica-meca-american-genre-painting-symposium/
Statement for “American Genre: Contemporary Painting” exhibition (regarding Swimmer, 2017):
“Every time I visit New York, I try to visit a particular Cézanne painting in the permanent collection at MoMA.
In the Cézanne, a youthful male bather carefully steps forward with his left foot, hands resting on hips, in a dreamlike overcast landscape by the sea. The picture is compelling because it seems to occupy several positions at once — strength, fragility, confidence, vulnerability, presence and preoccupation — in both the painter and his subject.
The source image for Swimmer was a found image of the American Olympian athlete Kathleen Gieneveve “Katie” Ledecky. I think I was drawn to the picture because I could sense a similar countenance in the subject to that of the Cézanne, which I have tried to capture here in my own way.”
