Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased
to present Hudson River Alley, an exhibition of paintings and mixed-media works
by the New York-based artist David Ellis. This is Ellis’s second solo show with the
gallery, and the artist will be present at the opening reception on September 12.
A voracious consumer and self-styled producer of American culture, David Ellis
works in a vast range of media, settings, and artistic disciplines—mural painting,
sculpture, digital video, installation, to name a few. Over his career, Ellis has created
video “motion paintings” edited to soundtracks of original music. His “Recollection”
sculpture series incorporates record album covers organized by color and theme.
And the artist’s “kinetic sound sculptures” use hidden motors to ingeniously
transform castoff materials into performative installations of percussive sound and
rhythm.
With Hudson River Alley, Ellis’s new work reflects the recent relocation of his studio
practice from Brooklyn to Woodstock, New York. This area’s resplendent natural
and historical surroundings are embodied in the artist’s use of tobacco-stained
paper and embrace of iconic images—black bears, silhouettes of soldiers, and the
American flag. (The subjects and materials also harken to the artist’s childhood,
living in a log cabin among the tobacco farms of rural North Carolina.) Individual
works on paper, rendered in enamel and acrylic in Ellis’s colorful graphic style, will
be displayed together as multiple panels in a massive wall mosaic—a unique, onetime-
only presentation in this exhibition.
Ellis’s return to a rural setting has inspired a renewed emphasis on the roots of
his artistic practice, painting. The compelling and intricate image of the black bear
recurs, most notably in Bear 1, a large painted work created on a reclaimed wooden
street sign. Hudson River Alley will include two kinetic sound sculptures, All That
Glitters (a kinetic chandelier) and Busted Plume (a kinetic trash can), the latter
originally exhibited in Viva la Revolución: Dialogue with the Urban Landscape (2010)
at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. The exhibition will also feature two
new sculptural works in the artist’s Recollection series and additional resin-onpanel
paintings.
Ellis rounds out his reflection on traditional Americana with three wall-mounted
works inspired by “The Star Spangled Banner”—O Say Can You See, By the Dawn’s Early Light, and What So Proudly We Hailed—in which the artist recasts
the national anthem’s opening lyrics in fresh colors, graphic fonts, and even Arabic
script. This materially rich series was created in enamel and acrylic with tobaccostained
paper and Chinese-made American flags mounted on Alumacore.
Born in 1971 in Raleigh, North Carolina, David Ellis received a BFA from the Cooper
Union. He came to prominence in the early 2000s as the unofficial founder of
the renowned Barnstormers, an art collective known for public projects in smalltown
communities in the American South. In recent years, Ellis has received
commissions to create works for Times Square Alliance and others, and his kinetic
sound installations have been acquired by the Charles Saatchi and Deutsche Bank
collections. His 2011 award-winning installation True Value (Paint Fukette) was
acquired by the Margulies Collection and exhibited at The Warehouse in Miami
in 2012. Ellis has conducted public projects at MOCA, MoMA, Deitch Projects,
and Mattress Factory; his work has been included in such notable exhibitions as
Animated Painting, San Diego Museum of Art (2007); Greater New York, P.S.1/
MoMA (2005); and Beautiful Losers, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati (2004).
ABOUT JOSHUA LINER GALLERY
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.
CONTACT
Please visit www.joshualinergallery.com, or contact Stephanie Gabriele at
212.244.7415 or stephanie@joshualinergallery.com