Don Giffin

Don Giffin Finish Fetish Abstract Alkyd Pigment Painting Los Angeles, California

1999

Don Giffin (American, 1948-2003) Skin Deep, 2001 Mixed media on canvas Hand signed Don Giffin, titled and dated (verso) 68 x 53 inches. Provenance: from the Art Collection of the InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta Framed dimensions: 74 1/4 x 59 inches. Don Giffin, Born in Chicago in 1948, Giffin earned his bachelor’s and master’s degree at what is now Cal State Northridge. An abstract painter who expanded the Southern California modes of “color and light” and “finish fetish” art, melding impressions of photography, printmaking and painting into a single work. Giffin, a master printmaker as well as a painter. In 1995 he mounted the first of his five solo exhibitions at the Christopher Grimes Gallery in Santa Monica. David Pagel described the artist’s work in a Los Angeles Times review as perfectly smooth, glass-like surfaces when viewed from afar that seemed to decay as one approached. They make pain palpable and evoke mortality’s inevitability, Pagel wrote of Giffin’s creations, which used layers of paint, gesso and tar that he pulled apart as they dried. “His corporeal abstractions bypass your mind to hit you in the stomach.” Giffin was one of 10 Los Angeles, California artists whose work was featured in the 1997 Biennial of the Orange County Museum of Art. (including Robert Blanchon, Jessica Bronson, Julia Couzens, Terri Friedman, Don Giffin, Dennis Hollingsworth, Carlos Mollura, Carter Potter, Monique Prieto, and Chris Wilder.) In reviewing that exhibition for The Times, Cathy Curtis wrote: Don Giffin reinvents stain painting by layering color in such a way that it emits an inner radiance verging on iridescence. The artist continued to push boundaries, and when he displayed his 6 X 5-foot acrylics at the Grimes Gallery in 2000, Pagel described them as mesmerizing works. The cross-fertilization between painting and photography that has been cropping up in some of the most intriguing works being made today takes breathless shape in Don Giffin’s physically resplendent paintings,” the critic wrote. “When I work,” he once said, “it’s like I’m doing a dance with the painting, and I’m not always leading. When the imagery is mysterious, the surface is perfectly smooth and the color contrast is just right with that glow of pale color coming through it’s sheer delight. Finish Fetish denotes a style of art related to the LA Look, pop art, minimalism, and light and space originating in southern California in the 1960s. Artwork of this type often has a glossy and slick finish and features an abstract design on a two-or three-dimensional surface made from fiberglass or resins. The style is similar to the simplicity and abstraction of minimalism and the bright colors and reference to commercial products found in pop art. To the world of postwar art it was a substantive addition. Artists included Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Judy Chicago, Joe Goode, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, John McCracken, Kenneth Price, DeWain Valentine...

JONATHAN FELDSCHUH Education: 1982-1986 Harvard University, summa cum laude in Physics 1993-1996 Academy of Fine Arts, Prague Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2017 “First Particles, Elementary Particles”, OPUS Project Space, New York 2016 "Large Hadron Collider", National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, with subsequent travel to Keck Institute, Washington DC; Janelia Gallery, Ashburn Virginia (2017); Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Bethesda, MD (2017) 2013 "The World Egg", Skink Ink Gallery, Brooklyn, New York 2012 "Large Hadron Collider", Mixed Greens Project Space, New York 2008 "Large Hadron Collider", Galerie Vernon & Vernon Projekt, Prague 2005 "Simulations", Cynthia Broan Gallery, New York; AAAS Gallery, Washington DC 2004 "Trajectories", Marella Arte Contemporanea, Como 2003 "Solar", Art Resources Transfer, New York 2002 "macro-mini", Vernon Fine Art International, Prague "Macrocosm", Cynthia Broan Gallery, New York 2000 "Little Corner of the World", Cynthia Broan Gallery, New York Selected Group Exhibitions: 2017 “The Cloud and the Void”, UES Gallery, New York “Resonators” 524W26 Gallery, New York 2016 “Visual Inquiries: Artists Inspired by Science”, Fingesten Gallery at Pace University, Artists: Suzanne Anker, Julia Buntaine, Angie Drakopoulos, Jonathan Feldschuh, Carter Hodgkin, Eve Andree Laramee, Deanna Lee, Maureen McQuillan, Paula Overbay, Taney Roniger, Steven Salzman. "Dialogues: Drawings and Works on paper", Satellite Contemporary, Las Vegas, January 9 - February 12, 2016 2015 "Sun Light / Star Light: Contemplations Upon the Solar Orb" - Louisiana Art & Science Museum, October 9, 2015 – April 3, 2016 2014 "Pouring it On", Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst "What Lies Beneath", SciArt Center, New York 2013 "Salon", Active Space Gallery, Brooklyn "Opening", The Paper Factory, Queens, New York 2012 "The Quantum Effect", The Active Space, Brooklyn "Laboratory", Pfizer Labs, Brooklyn 2010 "Lost Horizon", ArtJail Gallery, New York 2009 "Starry Messenger: Galileo's Vision in the 21st Century", Louisiana Art & Science Museum 2006 "Science as Muse”, Montgomery Center for the Arts, New Jersey "Native Spirit" Supreme Trading, Brooklyn 2005 "Beautiful Dreamers" Spaces, Cleveland 2004 “DNA: Art & Science”, University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum Art Miami (with Cynthia Broan Gallery) 2003 "Before and After Science", Marella Arte Contemporanea, Milan Scope Art Fair (with Cynthia Broan Gallery) Art Chicago (with Cynthia Broan Gallery) 2002 "Some Are Painting II", Educational Alliance, New York “Vivid”, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Center, Coventry; Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland "DNA", Art Resources Transfer, New York (Hallway Space project) 2001 "Vivid", Richard...

Unique piece More sizes and an Essay from Lyle Rexer about this series on request. Joachim Schmeisser’s work rescues photography from the centuries-old straightjacket of realism to...

Unique piece More sizes and an Essay from Lyle Rexer about this series on request. Joachim Schmeisser’s work rescues photography from the centuries-old straightjacket of realism to...