ERIC SALL OBSTACLES

NOVEMBER 21 - DECEMBER 23, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 21, 6-8 pm

  

 

Calculated gesture, palpable process and lively color struggle to contain and define the dynamism of Eric Sall’s collection of paintings on display at Marty Walker, November 21 – December 23, 2009.

Day-glow geometry and polychromatic veils read as ground, figure, and backdrop in Sall’s never-before seen, large-scale oil on canvas series Obstacles. The figural innuendos reference the history of painting as much as the artist’s lived experience as he pulls equally from the tradition of action-painting, consumer culture and environments. Sall’s candy-colored compositions work to impose order via chaos.

These motifs are merely a point of departure for Sall. Capitalizing on the tension between shape and line, puffy black gestures overlay the vibrant color fields and complicate the canvas denying the viewer access to the agglomerations of daubs of paint, scraped, pulled, and piled on. On closer view, these ‘shadows’ work to highlight the process bubbling under the surface, and in some instances take on a life of their own affecting an uneasy three-dimensionality.

Eric Sall received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, and his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has participated in such residencies as the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2008) and the Roswell Artist in Residency Program (2002), and was awarded the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation grant in 2004. His work is also included among the Saatchi Collection and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art's collection. Eric Sall currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.  

 

DIRECTIONS We are located between the Anatole Hotel and Irving Blvd. Take Oak Lawn west of I-35 to Irving Blvd. Turn right. Go to Manufacturing Street, turn right, then turn left on Farrington. The gallery is at the end of the street on the left. MAP