WES HEMPEL: A Portable Eden
October 17 - November 14, 2020 |
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
GBGLA is pleased to present the gallery's fourth solo exhibition of paintings by Wes Hempel. The exhibition features the artist's recent oil paintings and continues through November 14th.
Wes Hempel takes assumed narratives of masculinity and myth and deftly recontextualizes them - supple flesh, classical architectural forms, and pastoral landscapes take on new meaning under Hempel’s virtuosic brush strokes. By setting psychologically acute portraits of modern-day men against backdrops appropriated from such disparate sources as neoclassical history painting and Dutch golden age landscapes, the artist’s works forge provocative dialogues between past and present.
The current body of work continues Hempel’s longstanding practice of combining art historical elements with contemporary figures in order to question the homogeneity of classical art. The paintings are linked to the past both in their subject matter and their surface qualities, often quoting specific art historical references. However, the figures reveal that these are indeed contemporary work. Through this juxtaposition, Hempel investigates what the history of art might have looked like had homosexuality not been vilified.
Hempel writes, “a walk through any major museum will reveal paintings that depict or legitimate only certain kinds of experience. Despite the good intentions of critical theorists questioning the validity of the canon, paintings of the old masters on the walls of museums like the Met, the Louvre, Rijksmuseum still have a certain cache. They're revered not just for their technique but because they enshrine our collective past experience. Of course, it's a selected past that gets validated. Conspicuously absent to me as a gay man is my own story. By presenting contemporary males as objects of desire in familiar looking art historical settings, I'm able to imagine (and allow viewers to imagine) a past that includes rather than excludes gay experience-and ride the coattails, as it were, of art history's imprimatur.”
Hempel was born in El Monte, CA, in 1953 and received his BA from Cal State Northridge in 1985 and his MA from UC Boulder in 1988. He has exhibited extensively throughout the US since 1987 and his paintings are included in numerious private and public collections including the Denver Art Museum, Microsoft Art Collection, and the New Britain Museum of American Art (CT), among others. He splits his time between Colorado and Arizona.
Back to Artist Page
Wes Hempel takes assumed narratives of masculinity and myth and deftly recontextualizes them - supple flesh, classical architectural forms, and pastoral landscapes take on new meaning under Hempel’s virtuosic brush strokes. By setting psychologically acute portraits of modern-day men against backdrops appropriated from such disparate sources as neoclassical history painting and Dutch golden age landscapes, the artist’s works forge provocative dialogues between past and present.
The current body of work continues Hempel’s longstanding practice of combining art historical elements with contemporary figures in order to question the homogeneity of classical art. The paintings are linked to the past both in their subject matter and their surface qualities, often quoting specific art historical references. However, the figures reveal that these are indeed contemporary work. Through this juxtaposition, Hempel investigates what the history of art might have looked like had homosexuality not been vilified.
Hempel writes, “a walk through any major museum will reveal paintings that depict or legitimate only certain kinds of experience. Despite the good intentions of critical theorists questioning the validity of the canon, paintings of the old masters on the walls of museums like the Met, the Louvre, Rijksmuseum still have a certain cache. They're revered not just for their technique but because they enshrine our collective past experience. Of course, it's a selected past that gets validated. Conspicuously absent to me as a gay man is my own story. By presenting contemporary males as objects of desire in familiar looking art historical settings, I'm able to imagine (and allow viewers to imagine) a past that includes rather than excludes gay experience-and ride the coattails, as it were, of art history's imprimatur.”
Hempel was born in El Monte, CA, in 1953 and received his BA from Cal State Northridge in 1985 and his MA from UC Boulder in 1988. He has exhibited extensively throughout the US since 1987 and his paintings are included in numerious private and public collections including the Denver Art Museum, Microsoft Art Collection, and the New Britain Museum of American Art (CT), among others. He splits his time between Colorado and Arizona.
Back to Artist Page
George Billis Gallery opened its second location in the Culver City area of Los Angeles in 2004 and marks its 15th year in the Chelsea arts district in New York City. George Billis shows work by both emerging and established artists. For more information please contact the gallery at:
2716 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
T: 310-838-3685
F: 310-838-3438
email: [email protected]
www.georgebillis.com
2716 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
T: 310-838-3685
F: 310-838-3438
email: [email protected]
www.georgebillis.com