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 Back To Current Exhibitions
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Ian Francis: Season 1 Episode 0 Apr 25 - May 25, 2013
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Ian Francis
A Scene Comes to an End in Prospect Park, 2013
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Ian Francis
After the Show, a Love Triangle Drifts Apart
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Ian Francis
Chair Circle Audition Trap, 2013
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Ian Francis
Constructed 2886 Miles Away Outside of Reality, an Oceanside Mansion Waits for it’s Moment, 2013
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Ian Francis
Modern / Interior / Landscape / Hunter, 2013
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Ian Francis
Plaza Downfall, 2013
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Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present Season 1 Episode 0, an exhibition of new
paintings by the British artist Ian Francis. This is Francis’ second solo show with the gallery.
Working in mixed media on canvas and acrylic panels, Ian Francis combines abstraction, figuration, and elements of
both painting and drawing. For this exhibition, the artist is unveiling over a dozen medium- to large-scale works on
canvas and ten smaller works on acrylic that reflect broadly on the experience of television entertainment. Season 1
Episode 0 is inspired by the reality and unreality of contemporary TV—from the made-up world of characters and
storylines; to the digital manipulation of locations and visual effects; to the myriad platforms existing today for
production, delivery, and global consumption.
This concept of multidimensionality takes a psychological turn as Francis considers how audiences relate to fictional
realities that are lived yet not lived—an ongoing, ever-changing series of beginnings and endings in the minds of
viewers. The artist’s cross-disciplinary approach and layered imagery perfectly capture this phenomenon of
constructed worlds, virtual relationships, and shifting dimensions.
One large canvas entitled A Scene Comes to an End in Prospect Park, for example, depicts a climactic interaction
between two characters while crew members with boom mics stand by. Another painting, entitled After the Show, a
Love Triangle Drifts Apart, foregrounds three figures experiencing (or acting out) an emotional breakup in a dark,
indiscriminate atmosphere of trees, props, and film equipment. Ritual contains partly rendered makeup artists
building up the more defined, “fleshed-out” faces of actors. By contrast, the painting An Escape Plan is Limited by
How Far Reality Extends Beyond the Window depicts the cognitive dissonance and rupture of illusion at the edges
of a soundstage set.
Francis’ mixed-media practice includes such materials as charcoal, oil, ink, graphite, and acrylic paint. High-color
washes and jagged brushwork are interposed with meticulously rendered faces, postures, and emotional vignettes.
His seemingly spontaneous application of paint and nontraditional approach to materials creates a charged context
for the works’ subtler notes of melancholy and alienation, and the artist’s keen sense of contemporary social mores.
One is left with an awareness of the fragility of the image, our increasingly personalized consumption of fictional
narratives, and the unyielding pursuit of “perfection” embodied by media content and production today.
Ian Francis was born in 1979 in Bristol, UK, where he received a BA from University of the West of England and
currently lives and works. Selected solo exhibitions include 10,000 Years From Now, Lazarides Gallery, London
(2012); Fireland, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York (2011); Exodus, Lazarides Gallery (2010); Semi-Permanent,
Kinsey/DesForges, Sydney, Australia (2009); and Super Coma Fantasy, BLK/MRKT Gallery, Los Angeles (2007).
Founded in 2008, Joshua Liner Gallery presents an exciting roster of established and emerging artists from North
and South America, Asia, and Europe. The diverse program includes works in contemporary painting, sculpture,
collage, mixed-media installation, and cross-disciplinary artistic practices. A gallery owner for over a decade, Joshua
Liner marks his fifth year in New York City with a new, street-level exhibition space in the developing northern reach
of the Chelsea Arts District.
For more information, please visit www.joshualinergallery.com, or contact Stephanie Gabriele at 212.244.7415 or
stephanie@joshualinergallery.com.
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