Tony Khawam
Bear Mountain Blooms
2022

About the Item

Tony Khawam's recent work stems from his interest in histories, human emotion, allusions to place, memory, and the ubiquitous fleeting moments of the conscious and unconscious. The recent work has iconic undertones with a focus on the artist’s fascination with historical imagery from the ancient Mesopotamia, Assyria, Egypt, Greek, Roman, with influences of post-war German and American art adopted into his daily artistic and structural practices with the current surroundings and happenings by marrying a skewed perspective with dimensional flatness, his paintings allude to the continuous development of the American culture. The past and present of “Living the Dream” make the case for the way art and its language of color, line, and shape enrich a viewer’s experience of the work and offer a delicate balance between representation and abstraction, mirroring the real and unreal ways in which he paints lived experience. Moreover, his myriad mediums including acrylic, colored pastel, and spray paint further referencing painterly collage in a more experimental and risk-taking approach. The new work features historical and modern figures, social commentary, fashion motifs, everyday object, pop culture ads, cartoons, film, and Florida flora and fauna that inhabit flat, kaleidoscopic surfaces. The artist’ dialogue with the traditions of the past interweave with his participation in current global artistic discussions. This simultaneous engagement with the past, present, and future speaks to a singular creative presence. The new work is charged with a rawness produced by an ambiguous method to narrative and a fractal, unfinished approach to representing the subjects of the paintings. Characters appearing to piece themselves together from aggregated painterly gestures, these forms become figures of power and personal freedom through their abjection. Khawam’s boundless visual appetite for making pattern paintings with women in history and modern figures that feature an ever-expanding list of quotidian motifs make unlikely visual combinations within expansive fields of exuberant color. He takes pleasure in variety, and fully investigate each of his obsessions before moving to another painting. He trusts that the fundamental underpinnings of painting that gives him the freedom to depict anything he want, and the democratizing surfaces of his canvases work without illusion, perspective, logical scale shifts, or atmosphere. With his blunt yet lyrical approach, each painting has the feel of a complete thought that engages his artistic rich and raucous free association.

Creator:

Tony Khawam (1959, American)

Creation Year:

2022

Dimensions:

Height: 16 in (40.64 cm)Width: 18 in (45.72 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)

Medium:

Acrylic

Movement & Style:

Post-Modern

Period:

2010-