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For Immediate Release
PAVEL ZOUBOK GALLERY is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work by New York artist JONATHAN SANTLOFER. Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday, March 19, from 6-8pm, or during the run of the exhibition, which continues through April 18.
The gallery is located at: 533 West 23rd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues)
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am-6pm
Scrapbook centers on JONATHAN SANTLOFER’s seamless montages of both popular and art historical images and on the importance of drawing. The exhibition reflects a varied approach to mark making and the documenting of images, inviting new ways of seeing. Santlofer’s restrained palette of blacks, whites, grays and sepia tones allows us to focus on his decidedly graphic language. In these works he returns to his signature use of trompe l’oeil and montage and the expanded relationship between perceived reality and illusion. The cumulative experience is like a “scrapbook”: a collection of pictures, images put together in ways that seem random while being highly considered. It is a scrapbook of history – where political and art historical images smack up against popular icons (movie stars, famous artists, and even political heavyweights Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama!).
The current exhibition includes a series of “Degenerate” drawings made to look like German Expressionist woodcuts or etchings. These black and white ink drawings read as faux prints, invoking those artists labeled “degenerate” by the Nazis during the 1930s. Another series of ink drawings has a decidedly looser, and more layered quality conjuring dreamlike images derived from film noir - images of love and lust, cars in the night, the suggestion of danger and eroticism. The juxtaposition of these two series reminds us that this cinematic genre was pioneered by filmmakers who also fled Nazi Germany and France.
Since his transition from abstraction to figuration during the 1990s, Santlofer has continued to incorporate the visual thinking of collage/montage in his work, as well as using actual pasted or assembled forms. While Scrapbook will include some of his signature carved paintings, the emphasis will be on pencil drawings that articulate the fundamentals of his aesthetic. Santlofer writes, “I start with pencil because it feels like the most basic tool an artist can use to create images and illusions, and I go from there.” This is Jonathan Santlofer’s second solo exhibition at Pavel Zoubok Gallery.
For additional information and images please contact Steve Weintraub at (212) 675 7490 or steve@pavelzoubok.com
533 west 23rd street, new york, ny 10011 t 212.675.7490 f 212.675.8672
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