John Gibson: New Works
March 30 through April 27, 2018
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York
“John Gibson: New Works” explores the fundamental tension between representation and reality that remains at the heart of Gibson’s paintings.
“Although I have painted balls exclusively for over 25 years, I don’t really care that much about them,” Gibson says. “Of course I’m attracted to them just like anybody else. I admire their endlessness and mystery. I love the way they can stand in for all sorts of unknowns and even the way a circle, or a shape of some kind, sits on the surface of a ball and bends into space.
“But I don’t paint balls because of any of that, or because I think they have some significance or ‘meaning.’ I paint balls because they are the most simple and fundamentally different thing from the flat surface of a painting that I can think of. I like that elegant opposition of forces. Everyday I try to wring a ‘real’ ball out of a flat surface and every day I can’t quite do it. In the good paintings there is some residue of that effort and in the best paintings there is a lot.
“In many ways then, the subject of these paintings — at least for me — is just that residue: a wish for something that cannot be had; a version of a ball overlaid with desire.”
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[…] of.” But don’t be fooled by his twenty-five-year obsession with the image. A recent article in Fine Art Connoisseur covering his show at Gerald Peters Gallery, New York, covers why he really doesn’t care much […]
[…] of.” But don’t be fooled by his twenty-five-year obsession with the image. A recent article in Fine Art Connoisseur covering his show at Gerald Peters Gallery, New York, covers why he really doesn’t care much […]