“FACES RAW” Barron Storey, solo exhibition
Artist’s reception: Friday, April 6th from 7-11pm
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There’s something about faces. I remember my mother saying: “Barron always looks at faces…”. A big part of my illustration career–a habit in my journals–an exercise for my students (“The BIG HEADS”) and a focus in the art I’ve loved. I see faces in everything – everything. I was blown away by Chuck Close’s huge faces as much as Mona Lisa’s….
I’m also seriously attracted to modern abstract art– I see faces there, too. Faces in my own abstract mark making, faces in a de Kooning or a Pollock….”it’s always a face.” That’s a frequent comment in my journals….which leads me to say: “I’m a journal guy”. In over 200 journals I’ve illustrated my life – a life which has become very withdrawn as I age and do much less teaching. Cue the “selfies”–I draw a character based on my own appearance over and over–not looking in a mirror–not really “looking” at anything except the clutter of art supplies on my drawing board. I was taught to emphasize “seeing.” Seeing faces or other images in the marks made by my hand has, to an extent replaced observation of “reality” – looking “inside” rather than outside.
So when invited by the excellent Brian and Cherri of ANNO DOMINI to show new work, I had to face the fact that almost everything I do now is in my journals (500 pages in the last year and a half) so ….show THAT work.
By the way, almost all of it is very raw. My new esthetic is what I call “SPLAT.” I’ve lost almost all interest in refined realist painting. “SPLAT” is a process by which the images make themselves. I see images in every splat, and like everything else I look at–those images tend to be–you guessed it–faces. FACES RAW. ~ Barron Storey
Barron Storey (American, b. April 6, 1940) is an illustrator, graphic novelist, fine artist and noted educator, Storey has created award-winning artworks for the covers and pages of Time, National Geographic, Saturday Review, and The Sandman: Endless Nights among many others including the cover of the classic novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1980 edition.) His artworks are held in the collections of the National Air and Space Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. “FACES RAW” is Storey’s 7th solo exhibition with Anno Domini.
VIEW & PURCHASE AVAILABLE WORKS ONLINE