Dan Perkins + Alejandro Pintado | Material/Ethereal
Hamiltonian is pleased to present "Material/Ethereal", an exhibition of new works by artists Alejandro Pintado and Dan Perkins.
In "Material/Ethereal", Baltimore-based painter Dan Perkins and Mexico City-based artist Alejandro Pintado dissect and re-contextualize the visual and social histories that surround depictions of constructed and natural spaces from the 19th-century to the present day. Pintado and Perkins interrupt Romantic landscapes and interior spaces with luminous geometric forms, graphic patterns and trompe l'oeil effects, creating destabilized, artificial spaces where materials and forms morph and shift. By reversing hierarchies of foreground and background and making incongruous compositional choices, both artists upend pictorial conventions and invite viewers to consider painting's inherent falsity while acknowledging its potential as a catalyst for communication and ideation.
In his newest works, Alejandro Pintado immerses viewers into the hermetic private collections of the 19th century's great thinkers. Within the dusty confines of the studies and libraries of Humboldt, Sir John Soane and Darwin, Pintado places shimmering incandescent geometric forms and solid objects that hover in space. These foregrounded objects, metaphors for the pursuit of knowledge, break the two dimensional picture plane and serve as a bridge between Pintado's painted depictions of a fading modern past and the present day.
Dan Perkins newest works question painting's ability to communicate notions of the sublime in the contemporary era. Using digital screen interfaces, flat graphic patterns and geometric design forms to interrupt luminous, expansive and seductive depictions of landscape, Perkin's fractured compositions create stirring interactions between image and context, figure and ground, subject and content.
Alejandro Pintado holds a bachelors in Fine Art from La Escuela Nacional de Pintura Escultura y Grabado la Esmeralda in Mexico City and a Masters in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College in London, England. A recipient of awards both nationally and internationally, Pintado has exhibited extensively in museums and galleries both in the Americas and in Europe; notable recent exhibitions include The Clearest Skies at Post Box Gallery, London (2015); When The Rational Seems Abstract, Galeria Arróniz Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City (2015) and Trayectoria del Conocimiento / Path of Knowledge at the National Museum of Art in Mexico City (2013).
Dan Perkins holds an MFA in painting from American University. Perkins has exhibited throughout the region and abroad: recent exhibitions include Alone In The Woods at Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington, DC (2015); Dweller at Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA (2015) and Salon Zurcher with Curator's Office at Galerie Zurcher in New York, NY (2014). His paintings are held in the collection of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Katzen Museum at American University and several private collections.
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May 14 - June 18, 2016
Opening Reception:
Saturday, May 14
7-9 pm
Artist Talk:
Tuesday, May 17
7 pm
Hamiltonian Artists:
Dan Perkins
Guest Artist:
Alejandro Pintado
photos by Michael Schiffer