Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings and graphite drawings by Barnaby Furnas (b.1973, Philadelphia, PA). This will be the artist’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery.
In this new series of paintings, loosely titled "If Wishes Were Fishes," Furnas again tackles epic historic and religious iconography, this time drawing from both the lore of Melville’s Moby Dick, as well as Jonah’s flight from God that lands him in the belly of the whale. On this Furnas says, “What interested me about whaling in the first place was that they (the whales) gave us light - their fat allowed us to bring God's light into the darkness of the night so we could see our fingers and maybe read after the sun went down."
In these new works, Furnas expands upon his diverse and deft cache of painterly techniques, sampling freely from the academic and modern in both subject matter and form. From a technique point of view, two trends emerge from this group of work: one; an emphasis on ground - using thin watercolor-esque applications of paint (staining) on to thickly combed grounds of gesso, and two; the use of hard, taped edges and the blending of wet paint on wet paint. Here, technique follows subject matter: the harsh, sharp, controlled approaches suggest dissection while the softer flowing images lean toward a sense of resolution.
