Groeflin Maag Galerie is pleased to announce the third solo show at the gallery with Canadian artist Brad Phillips.
"Sentimental Break down" is a new group of paintings and photographs by Vancouver-based artist Brad Phillips. Here Phillips presents a disparate group of works that, through various pictorial tactics, explore a sentimental subject matter that is distinctly undermined by a sense of the macabre or melancholy. While his motifs stem from a personal or diaristic impulse, his pictures are imbued with a palpable tension within and between the works.
Phillips' lush nudes, floral nocturnes, banal details of domesticity, silhouetted figures, and text based paintings all converse in unexpected ways, constructively complicating initial readings by implicitly suggesting that the world depicted is not as idyllic as first perceived. A Degas-esque nude takes on the elegant brutality of Walter Sickert, objects painted from flash-lit studies suggest photographs Weegee's crime scene photographs, paintings of book covers remind the viewer of the latent tragedies in the authors' unreadable pages, and text works suggest depression, anger, and black humour.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is "Final Antechamber", a massive, exhaustively detailed painting of a forest at night. The tangled branches visible in the foreground due to a flash-like light create a visually complex and naturally beautiful display of forms. The size and illusion of the painting invite the viewer to step into it, but also prompts a hesitation, and the promise of returning from it is uncertain.
Text by Adam Hattison
Brad Phillips (b. 1974 in Toronto, Canada) lives and works in Vancouver. His work has been shown internationally in several solo and group shows. In 2007 he had his second solo show at Wallspace In NY and a solo presentation with Groeflin Maag at Liste 08.
