Caldwell Snyder Gallery
341 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94108
Contact: Susan Snyder
Hours: Monday - Saturday 10 - 6 PM
(415)392-2299

San Francisco, CA- Caldwell Snyder Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition of new work by Cole Morgan and Rik van Iersel.

Witty, playful, and enigmatic, the paintings of Cole Morgan appear to map the mysterious processes and uncharted territories of the mind. His bright, light-filled canvases create a precarious balance between logic and imagination: gridlines dissolve into spontaneous drips; text teases us with legibility before vanishing behind ghostly overlays. Yet despite the apparent intervention of random events, each painting constitutes an exquisitely wrought pattern. "Every square millimeter of canvas is controlled," Morgan says. "There are no 'accidents' in my compositions." Through his labor-intensive process of layering and re-layering, modeling and drawing, Morgan sets up compelling tensions between form and formlessness, abstraction and representation.

Morgan's work has been exhibited internationally at the Ludwig Museum, Koblenz, Germany; CIGE, Beijing; the Korea International Art Fair; Galerie Mi a Joosten, Amsterdam; and Museum Laerken Nykobing Falster, Denmark, among many others. Born in New York in 1950, he lives and works in Belgium.

With fearless brushwork and an explosive palette, Rik van Iersel fuses traditions of expressionism, symbolism and Pop art into paintings of profound psychological depth and visual complexity. Inhabited by unforgettably distinct characters, his canvases are richly developed emotional landscapes that explore the often volatile dynamics of human interaction. Van Iersel's imagery—a collection of private symbols culled from primitive art, comics and the collective unconscious—combines dark humor with an irrepressible belief in the communicative power of art-making. To view his work is to find ourselves at the center of a vital conversation.

Rik van Iersel has exhibited at numerous museums, galleries and international art fairs, including the Galerie Peter Borchardt, University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, Germany; Museum van Bommel van Dam, Venlo, The Netherlands, and MU Art foundation, Eindhoven. He was born in 1961 in Maastricht and lives and works in the Netherlands.

####

“Recent Works - Cole Morgan & Rik van Iersel” – November 2009
Caldwell Snyder 341 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94108 For more information, high-resolution images or a press kit, please contact Susan Snyder | susan@caldwellsnyder.com or call 415.392.2299 |www.caldwellsnyder.com