In his first solo exhibition at Linda Hodges Gallery, acclaimed
Seattle painter Gary Faigin presents a new body of work titled “Compression
Fittings.” Largely inspired by a series of late paintings by Morandi, Faigin
says “ I was particularly struck by his (Morandi) imposing a strict
geometrical framework on unlikely grouping of disparate objects, a framework
that heightened the tension between the flat and the dimensional, what
recedes, what advances.”
Faigin continues, “Each painting in the series is an attempt to
reconcile pictorial opposites, while at the same time heightening the
internal conflicts those opposites create. Individual paintings are keyed
off a particular contrast…light and dark, or the complex and the simple.
Objects are altered or invented…and backgrounds are intended as a dramatic
foil…If my Compression Fittings were realized in fact, I like to imagine
them similarly becoming quickly unstuck, as though spring-loaded.”
Gary Faigin was born on September 17, 1950 in Detroit, Michigan.
In 1976, he studied with famed anatomist, Robert Beverly Hale, at the Art
Students League of New York. Faigin remained a student at the League for 4
years, in addition, he pursued art studies part-time at the National Academy
of Design, School of Visual Arts and Parsons School of Design. In 1979,
Faigin spent a year studying at the famed École nationale supérieure des
Beaux-Arts in Paris, France.
In 1989, Faigin and his wife opened a summer art school in Santa
Fe, New Mexico, launching the “Academy of Realist Art” at St. John’s
College, which eventually became the current Gage Academy of Art in Seattle,
Washington, where Faigin serves as Artistic Director. The Frye Art Museum in
Seattle presented a retrospective exhibition of Faigin's work in 2001. Since
2001, Faigin has had a monthly spot as an art critic on the KUOW-FM radio as
well as writing monthly reviews on the Seattle arts website artdish.com.
|
