"East Village NYC"

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Flore
"East Village NYC"
2019

About the Item

Flore Colors have their own rhythms, unique energy signatures that like notes gain depth and nuance through juxtaposition and sequence. In a painting, colors work to create and define space, optical movement, and emotional narratives. Painter Flore understands the symphonic power of colors at a foundational level, and for the past several years, his Urban Cubist works have deployed complex chromatic equations and witty texts to create unique, jaunty, bustling, architectural canvases. But increasingly, it’s been his Moderns series that has explored a mature, poetic, and even classically art historical relationship with the powers of color -- a series that sets not only the eye, but the mind and the heart, in constant motion. In these affecting abstractions, an animated gestural quality has a directness whose simplicity gives way to complex, nuanced depths. In many important ways, this series offers traditional (or at least traditionally understood) AbEx paintings. But in Flore’s expressionism, every brushstroke and color are intentionally synced, with a purposeful transcendence of raw energy in the service of a more specific construction. For example reds signify power and thus are rendered hard and fast with a heavy brush; blue is more whimsical and is deployed in a smoother inflected flow. Flore’s facture is rooted in the integrity of chromatic energies and their balance, feeling that the energy of each color deserves its own way of being. The artist was formally trained in art school and took a special interest in color theory and the optical dynamics of how color moves the eye and creates the effect of space within the surface, the sense of forward and retreating motion. As part of his evolution as an artist, he’s put in countless hours in the studio, pursuing a maturing technique and a fresh path to self-expression. “The Urbans are who I am, a hip hop street kid from Brooklyn,” he says, “but Modern is my taste. My heroes are Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooing, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell… I’m an art nerd, what can I say?” Characterized by a sense of substance, depth, and the lowkey storms of unguided stories, the Moderns are paintings with old souls, nuanced and confident in being open to interpretation. Each one is also direct evidence of true reflected emotions, captured at the moment of creation, and in that way creates a profound discourse between the artist’s lived experiences and his aesthetic lineage. Despite their pure energy, Flore creates them feeling a responsibility to art history, while finding the path to make the historical sparks his own -- to, as he says, “execute at a level that honors their influence.” And one way is the ultra-modern palette. The vibrancy and saturation and the cultural codes and cues embedded in his colors belong to the current zeitgeist, creating a compelling flicker between the past and the present.

Creator:
Flore (1983, American)
Creation Year:
2019
Dimensions:
Height: 30 in (76.2 cm)Width: 2 in (5.08 cm)Depth: 30 in (76.2 cm)
Medium:
Canvas,Acrylic
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
2010-
Condition:
Gallery Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU37137252602

Shop All Flore

Flore

Born in Brooklyn, New York’s Marine Park neighborhood, contemporary fine artist Christopher Florentino, also known as “Flore,” grew up surrounded by art. His aunt Weezy, a major influence during Flore’s childhood, was a sculptor, and she immersed her nephew in the New York art scene from an early age.

Flore was drawn to the Museum of Modern Art, not only to the energy of 20th-century abstract works by the likes of Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock, but also to mid-century modern furniture for which he developed a particular passion; at the tender age of 13, the artist bought an Eames chair as his very first piece of furniture. Today, Flore has a large collection that includes pieces by Eero Saarinen, Herman Miller and Knoll, among other legendary designers and manufacturers.

Flore studied formally in the communication and design program at New Jersey’s Brookdale Community College before working in a number of creative roles, from fashion (both as a stylist and a T-shirt designer) to crafting window displays. Flore wanted to become an artist but worried about the profession’s viability — a widely shared concern among budding artists. At age 30, however, he made the jump to become a full-time painter. At the intersection of Abstract Expressionism and street art, with touches of both Willem de Kooning and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Flore’s work, which he describes as “urban cubism,” is vibrant both in its scintillating colors and in the energy of its brushstrokes. Text also features prominently in many of his works.

Today, Flore works out of a studio in New York City’s East Village. He also spent several years in Miami and Winter Haven, Florida, where he owned a concrete-and-glass mid-century house (of course!) designed by architect Gene Leedy, a founding member of the Sarasota School of Architecture, a modernist architectural movement launched in Sarasota, Florida, in the 1940s. Flore’s work can be found in the collections of quite a number of high-profile clients, including Beyoncé and Eva Longoria, as well as the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection in Hokuto, Japan.

Browse Flore’s paintings and mixed-media work on 1stDibs.