RODNEY DICKSON – PAINTINGS
2010-05-31Rodney Dickson is a great force in painting. He is his own man and works without compromise, disregarding passing fashion or style. Often shocking, he challenges our aesthetic values beyond good taste, digging to explore the deeper impulses of our psychology. He draws together disparate ways of working, changing from realistic to abstract, using thick or thin paint and applying it with his hands when necessary, or a brush, pouring or spraying, constantly searching for the clearest expression. “Since my time as a student I have never considered good painting to be limited to one style. Instead we must use anything to drag a painting out of ourselves”.
In all of his paintings there are layers of previous paintings, traces of imagery, mostly now obscured. The result of this ruthless practice of constantly creating and destroying is to put life and history into the work. Some of the imagery may in the end be unseen, and here the artist notes a parallel to how our individual personalities are formed by the accumulation of often unnoticed life events. He sees his work as an exploration of the human condition. His working practice is relentless, striving daily to paint better than before in the belief that each new painting will bring him closer to his goal.
Opposite – Number 2, Rodney Dickson
Exhibition runs from June 4th to July 2nd, 2010.
Gasser Grunert
524 West 19th Street
New York
NY
10011
