NEW YORK, NY.- Marlborough Chelsea is presenting Sunny Disposition a solo exhibition by Greg Bogin, his first with the gallery. The artist is known for his colorful shaped-canvases where the fabric is forced into complex contortions as it is pulled seamlessly taut over wooden panels. This body of work expands upon these strategies with subtle variations of color, complexity of shape and shifts in scale. The works test the tolerances of the material with deep curves and rounded corners, and emphasize their purely sculptural aspects. It is precisely this friction between surface and object that gives these works their charge and appeal.
In terms of composition, crosscurrent references also inform the paintings. An obvious affinity for classic minimalism and geometric abstraction is evident, but this is tempered with an equal interest in more vernacular source material. The artist also looks to the legibility and physicality of street signs, billboards, and storefront awnings (specifically in their wrapped, volumetric presence, like skin over bones) with their high key colors and intent to dazzle.
Spray-enabled techniques, like the ultra-smooth gradient fades of his Sunset works and laser-tight stripes, bring to mind the perfected countenance and enforced optimism of manufactured products as much as the output of the New York School. In fact, though a lifelong resident of New York, Bogin is an artist who has absorbed some of the spirit of Californian Finish Fetish. He invests these object/paintings with a meditative purity that is further reinforced by layers of glossy urethane clear-coat offset by expanses of matte white gesso. The areas of white meld with the gallery walls creating the illusion of a completed rectangle, or create a destabilized non-space that frames larger areas of saturated color.
Snarky titles such as Sunny Disposition (Better Luck Next Time) suggest that there are limits to the seemingly ecstatic positivity of the paintings. While this adds an energizing dose of antagonism to the work, it does little to dampen their powerful effect.
Greg Bogin (b. 1965 in New York, NY) received a BFA from The Cooper Union in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Companion Series (2013) at Paolo Curti/Annamaria Gambuzzi & Co, Milan, Italy; all smiles… (2011) at Leo Koenig Inc., New York. Recent group exhibitions include EAGLES II (2015) at Galeria Marlborough, Madrid, Spain; Heart-Shaped Box (2014) at Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris France; Neon: vom Leuchten dee Kunst (2014) at Stadtgalerie Saarbrucken, Germany; Xstraction (2013) at The Hole, New York. The artist lives in New York City and works in Brooklyn.
