29 January-14 March 2015
Joram Roukes & Charles Wilkin
This Masters Projects Exhibition of work by Joram Roukes and Charles Wilkin includes nine large scale paintings by Roukes and 25 new collage works by Wilkin.
Roukes and Wilkin are thematically united by the often dark nature of their surreal subjects and their intuitive juxtapositions of photographic imagery and abstracted forms. Though emerging from distinctly different backgrounds (Roukes is from a small town in the Netherlands and Wilkin is from Buffalo, NY) and using distinctly different mediums (painting vs. collage), the two artists are driven by remarkably similar concerns. Each artist uses appropriated images as “readymades” within their unique stream-of-consciousness styles, which incorporate fluidly designed layers of content and media that extrude and protrude from one another.
Roukes’ collage-like paintings of anthropomorphic-hipsteresque-hybrids set within dystopian landscapes visually invoke cultural tensions through Realist and Expressionistic painting styles. Wilkin’s painterly collages portraying vintage portraits, whose facial features have been distorted and reconstructed from fragmented print media, retain their aura of glamour, whilst simultaneously celebrating the grotesque. Ultimately, both artists’ subjects reside within a dream-like surrealistic place, alluding to themes concerning the nature of interpretation and the ways in which images embody cultural memory.
In connection with this show, full colour publications and limited edition prints by both artists are scheduled for release on 5 March.
(adapted from the gallery’s press materials)
INFORMATION
Masters Projects
Suite 212
111 Front Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201 USA
(646) 926-2787
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Image (top):
Jockey Picnic
by Joram Roukes
72″x120″
oil on linen
2014
Image courtesy of Masters Projects, Inc., Brooklyn
Image (centre):
The Vacancy
by Charles Wilkin
11″x8″
collage
2014
Image courtesy of Masters Projects, Inc., Brooklyn