SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Haines Gallery presents two concurrent solo exhibitions, featuring new and recent works by Darren Waterston and Maurizio Anzeri.

Architectonic Forms is New York-based artist Darren Waterston’s ninth solo exhibition with Haines Gallery, and follows his nationally touring installation Filthy Lucre, a reimagining of James McNeil Whistler’s eccentric masterwork of decorative art, the Peacock Room. Exhibited for the first time on the West Coast, Waterston’s newest body of work continues to explore the coalescence between painting and architecture in Western art history, while reflecting the artist’s sustained interest in the allegorical, alchemical and apocalyptic.

In Architectonic Forms, Waterston draws directly from devotional architectural structures such as Renaissance altarpieces, confessional screens and Gothic partitions, reinterpreting them as magnetic and even menacing painterly objects. Familiar religious iconography is transformed into apocalyptic landscapes, gestural flourishes and paint scarred surfaces characteristic of Waterston’s work. The centerpiece of the exhibition, Triptych (twilight), 2014, is based on Matthias Grünewald’s sixteenth century masterpiece, The Isenheim Altar, and casts a spectral halo from the back of its hinged panels. At once intriguing and foreboding, the works hint at something darker lurking beneath their surfaces and demonstrate paradoxical ideas of attraction and revulsion. Says Waterston, “Esthetic collisions of beauty and the grotesque are continuously found in my work. This is what ecstasy is, transcendence through rhapsody and terror.”

Darren Waterston (b. 1965; Lives and works in New York) received his BFA at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. He continued his training in Germany, studying painting at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and the Kunstakademie Münster. He is the recipient of the Richard C. Diebenkorn Teaching Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute (2004), and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship in Umbertide, Italy (2005), where he was an artist-in-residence. Waterston has been showcased in solo exhibitions at Bellevue Art Museum, WA (2003); San Jose Museum of Art, CA (2006); Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, CA (2009); Poet’s House, New York, NY (2013); MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2014–2015); and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. (2016–2017). His works are included in the collections of institutions such as Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; Oakland Museum of California; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Seattle Art Museum, WA; and Portland Art Museum, OR.

London-based Italian artist Maurizio Anzeri is best known for his innovative take on portraiture, using brightly colored embroidery thread to create surreal, uncanny portraits from found vintage photographs. Lay it on the Line, presented in Haines Gallery’s project room, sees the artist turning his attention toward landscapes.

This recent move from faces to places is a natural progression for Anzeri, who had previously compared facial features to topographical definitions as he mapped out his threadwork. In this new body of work, what was once a traditional landscape photograph is deftly transformed into a sculptural, textural artwork that radiates with angled rays of vividly colored thread. A highlight of the exhibition is SunSet (2017), which artfully combines ten related photographs found at Bay Area flea markets during Anzeri’s 2014 stay in San Francisco. The work is intimate and nostalgic, with a filigree of red lines guiding our gaze over starkly colored shores seen at dusk.

The title of the exhibition, Lay it on the Line, alludes to Anzeri’s embarking on a new stage of his career, as well as his interest in the idea of ‘electricity’: electricity that we emanate and absorb, its manifestations, and the apparent phenomena of Ley lines. First coined in 1921 by amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins, the term hypothesizes an ancient alignment of significant structures and landforms. In Anzeri’s altered landscapes, the mysterious emanations from both the natural and built environment suggest unseen phenomena, and allude to the spiritual and mystical.

Lay it on the Line is Anzeri’s first US solo exhibition, and reinforces Haines Gallery’s commitment to supporting the careers of emerging and mid-career international artists.

Maurizio Anzeri (b. 1969; Lives and works in London) studied sculpture and graphic design at the Camberwell College of Fine Arts (1996–99) and at The Slade School of Fine Art, London (2002–2005), obtaining an MA in Fine Art and Sculpture. Anzeri’s work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK (2013); and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2011). Recent group exhibitions include A Take on Vintage Photography, Siauliai Ausros Museum, Lithuania (2016); The Needle’s Eye: Contemporary Embroidery, National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway; Secondhand, Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA; Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (all 2015). His work is held in public and private collections around the world including Museum Kunstpalast, Germany, and the Saatchi, Gagosian, Rothschild, and Alexander McQueen collections.