Elliott Green at Pierogi

“Human Nature”
Exhibition Dates: 18 Feb – 26 March, 2017
Opening Reception: Sunday, 19 Feb, 2017. 6-8pm
Catalogue available with essay by Jana Prikryl

Elliott Green - "North of the Hippocampus," 2017, Oil on linen, 18 x 24 inches

 

 

Press Release

Pierogi is delighted to present a one-person exhibition of recent paintings by Elliott Green. A decade ago, Green believed that his “home was in his head, and the ideas and images it produced would be carried independently wherever I went, but [a] change of place …transformed my work and myself.” These new paintings are the outcome of this shift and they merge abstraction, emotion, and riffs on landscape, resulting in highly charged, crystalized moments. Jana Prikryl notes, “Elliott Green’s paintings appear to be in continuous motion, the way animals, plants, and ultimately rocks and mountains are in continuous motion, even when our human vision fails to apprehend it. Placing great thick gestures of paint amid minute intricacies and vice versa, his compositions demonstrate the movement of the universe on both the macro and the micro scales.”

In paintings titled “Sky Slip,” “Fire Drip,” “The Photon Skirt,” “Mineral Ancestors,” and others, a swirl of paint becomes a swath of sky, a jagged line becomes a mountain or ridge and then, just as swiftly, a schism occurs and a smear or angle reveals itself to be entirely abstract, pulling us out of the impulse to pareidolia, to see something representational in a stroke of paint. David Ebony writes of “Mammatus,” “[r]ather than depicting any real mountains…Green’s rocky vista seems emblematic of anything insurmountable or unapproachable.” Inserting elements “…like a single bravura brushstroke, is a purely abstract device that breaks the illusion of the infinite landscape, reminding the viewer that this, after all, is just paint-on-canvas.” “…[P]erpetrating such acts of narrative on Green’s canvases must fill the viewer with ambivalence: you’re teased into seeing things that aren’t really present. It’s almost as if this systole-diastole between interpretation and unprejudiced seeing were the aim of each painting.” (Jana Prikryl)

The painting title “Beach Mountain” references geological discoveries along these lines of displacement and disruption, where shells and fossils of sea creatures found on mountain tops first led to the questioning of religious concepts of time versus geological realities.

Through their rapid sequencing, layering, and strata-like formation, Green’s paintings also reveal the passage of time and their own kind of evolution. “[A] painting like Green’s Expander—which seems to me a bold series of formal departures, suggesting the unceasing incursions of time’s fourth dimension into what we know as the first three and thereby straining an identity’s need for coherence, while refusing such readings in just the polyvalent way that, say, Emily Dickinson’s “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – ” resists paraphrase—a painting like Expander operates like an expander on the mind, inserting thoughts (see my foregoing m-dashes) while earlier thoughts are still forming.” (Jana Prikryl)

This exhibition will include a group of recent paintings ranging in size from 18 x 24 inches to 6 ½ x 11 ½ feet and will be accompanied by a catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition.

Elliott Green was born in Detroit, Michigan. He moved to New York City as a young man and lived there for twenty-four years. In 2005 he moved to Athens, New York, a small town situated between the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River. He has received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, the Rome Prize (2011), and an Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize, along with numerous residency grants.


CV

Lives and works in Athens, New York

Born 1960, Detroit, MI

EDUCATION

1978-81                    University of Michigan

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

2017        Human Nature, Pierogi, New York, NY

2016        John Davis Gallery, Hudson, NY

2009        D’Amelio Terras, New York

2005        Singer Gallery, Denver, CO

2003        Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York

2002        Center for Visual Art + Culture, University of Connecticut, Stamford and Storrs

2001        Postmasters, New York

2000        Postmasters, New York

1998        Postmasters, New York

1996        Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL

I-Space, The University of Illinois, Chicago

Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago

1994        Fawbush, New York

1993        Fawbush, New York

1991        Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York

Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago

1989        Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York

1986        Simon Cerigo, New York

1983        Schweyer-Galdo, Detroit

 

COLLABORATIVE EXHIBITIONS 

2016        Studio10, Brooklyn, NY, “Narratives of Enigma”, with David Brody

The Frank Institute at CR10, Linlithgo NY, Creation Stories, with Colin Gee

2010        Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, “Team SHaG”, w/Amy Sillman and David Humphrey

2006        I-Space, The University of Illinois, Chicago, “Team SHaG”

2005        Lafayette College, Easton, PA, “Team SHaG”

1998        Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT, “Team SHaG”

Pamela Auchincloss Gallery, New York, “Team SHaG”

1997        Postmasters, New York, “Team SHAG”

 

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2016        “Outside In”, Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York

“Representing Rainbows”, Gerald Peters Gallery, New York

“Shimmering Substance: Selections from Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grantees of the Hudson Valley”,

Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodstock, NY

“Faulted Valley Fog”, Transmitter Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2015        “Gazing Inward”, Coop Gallery, Nashville TN

“Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts” and “Exhibition of Work by Recipients of Honors and Awards”, American

Academy of Arts and Letters, New York

2014        “Elements of Style”, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA

2012        “Le ciel est par-dessus le toit”, Lucien Terras, New York

2010        “Myths of the Near Future”, Nicole Fiacco Gallery, Hudson, New York

“Town and Country”, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York

“Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts” and “Exhibition of Work by Recipients of Honors and Awards”, American

Academy of Arts and Letters, New York

2008        “Ultra-Concentrated Joy”, New York Academy of Art, New York

2007        “By Invitation Only”, Kinz, Tillou + Feigen, New York

“Multiple Interpretations”, New York Public Library, New York

“The Beholders Eye”, Salmagundi Club, New York

2006        “Apres Nous, Le Deluge”, Francis M Naumann Gallery, New York

2005        “Visitors from the East”, Billy Shire Fine Arts, Culver City, CA

“Selections from the Neiman Center, Columbia University”, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York

“Print, Process, Collaboration”, Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia

2004        “It’s a Wonderful Life: Psychodrama in Contemporary Painting”, Spaces, Cleveland, OH

“Colored Pencil”, KS Art, New York

2003        “Comic Release”, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Carnegie-Mellon University

Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA

“Into the Woods”, Julie Saul Gallery, New York

2001        “Contemporary Drawings”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver

“Prints from Columbia University”, Susan Inglett Gallery, New York

2000        “Self-Made Men”, curated by Alexi Worth, DC Moore Gallery, New York;

“Norton Acquisitions”, Haggerty Museum, Milwaukee, WI

Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI

“The Figure: Another Side of Modernism,” Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, New York

“The End”, ExitArt, New York

“No Rhyme or…”, Postmasters Gallery, New York

“Nude and Narrative”, PPOW, New York

“Cyber Drawings”, Christinerose Gallery, New York

1999        Center for Print Studies, Columbia University, New York

Pace/Prints, New York

Tibor De Nagy, New York

Campo & Campo, Belgium

Singer Gallery, Denver

1997        Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

Diverseworks Art Space, Houston

1996        Thread Waxing Space, New York

Hill Gallery, Birmingham, MI

Caren Golden Fine Art, New York

Exit Art, New York

K&E Gallery, New York

Adam Baumgold Fine Art, New York

Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago

1995        Exit Art, New York

Three Rivers Art Festival, Pittsburgh

E.S. Vandam, New York

1994        Fawbush, New York

Frumkin-Adams Gallery, New York

1993        The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York

The Drawing Center, New York

Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL

1992        Exit Art, New York

David Beitzel Gallery, New York

Marsha Fogel Gallery, East Hampton

Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York

1991        Galerie Schultze, Cologne

Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York

White Columns, New York

1990        Pence Gallery, Santa Monica

White Columns, New York

Galerie Paule Anglim, San Francisco

Althea Viafora Gallery, New York

1989        Renee Fotouhi Fine Art, New York

1986        Simon Cerigo Gallery, New York

 

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Yau, John. “Elliott Green Can See for Miles and Miles and Miles,” Hyperallergic, February 26, 2017

Smith, Roberta. “Roiling, Vibrant, Untamed and Abused,” The New York Times, March 17, 2017

Hoban, Phoebe. “From Shangri-La to Hell: Elliott Green’s Human Nature,” Riot Material, March 4, 2017

Malone, Peter. “Elliott Green Paintings Marry Landscapes to Dramatic Abstraction,” Hamptons Art Hub, March 6, 2017

Prikryl, Jana. “The Painter of Continuous Motion,” The New York Review of Books, February 18, 2017

Prikryl, Jana. “Nothing’s Ever Standing Still,” Elliott Green: Human Nature, Catalogue Essay, Pierogi Press, 2017

Ebony, David. “Top 10 New York Gallery Shows of 2016,” Artnet News, December 2016

Yau, John. “Why Give a Name to It?,” Hyperallergic, December 2016

Yau, John. “Summer Carousing and Revelry,” Hyperallergic, July 2016

Ayers, Robert. “Elliott Green: D’Amelio Terras”, ArtNews, December 2009, p. 110

Maine, Stephen. “Joanne Greenbaum and Elliott Green”, Art in America, November 2009, p. 194

Brody, David. “Elliott Green: Personified Abstraction at D’Amelio Terras”, ArtCritical.com, October 2009

Neyenesch, Cassandra. “Joanne Greenbaum: Hollywood Squares, Elliott Green: Personified Abstraction”, The Brooklyn

                  Rail, October 2009

Worth, Alexi. “Elliott Green’s Family Values”, with eight reproductions, The Sienese Shredder #3, 2009

Wolff, Rebecca (Editor). Magazine cover and nine reproductions, Fence, Vol. 9, No. 2, Winter/Spring 2007

Brown, Brice. Exhibition catalog, Apres Nous, Le Deluge, Francis M Naumann Fine Art, New York, 2006

Katherine Chapin. Exhibition catalog, Visitors From the East, Billy Shire Fine Arts, Culver City, CA, 2005

Exhibition catalog, It’s a Wonderful Life: Psychodrama in Contemporary Painting, March 2004

“Working Proof: Elliott Green”, (review), Art on Paper, September-October 2001

Exhibition catalog, The Figure: Another Side of Modernism, January 2001

Ebony, David. “Elliott Green,” (exhibition review), Art in America, February 2001

Artist Page, six reproductions, Harper’s, November 2000

Smith, Lee. “Once Upon a Canvas; The Elliott Green Story,” Modern Painters, Autumn 2000

McAdam, Barbara. “Elliott Green,” (exhibition review), Artnews, September 2000

Ebony, David. “Ten Picks”, artnet.com, June 2000

Goings On About Town, “Elliott Green/Steve Mumford” (short review), The New Yorker, June 5, 2000

Johnson, Ken. “Elliott Green,” Art in Review, The New York Times, May 26, 2000

Goings On About Town, “Elliott Green”, (reproduction) The New Yorker, May 15, 2000

“Cyberdrawings” (exhibition review), Art On Paper, January 15, 2000

Exhibition catalog, 26 American Artists, Campo & Campo, Belgium, October 1999

“Gravity & Float”, seven reproductions, Fence, Spring 1998

H-O, Paul. “Elliott Green at Postmasters Gallery” (exhibition review), artnet.com, February, 1998

Shulz, David. “Editor’s Choice”, (exhibition review), Bomb, Spring 1998

Artist project, Interview, February 1998

Goings On About Town, “Elliott Green” (exhibition review), The New Yorker, February 9, 1998

Robinson, Walter; H-O, Paul. Gallery Beat (television), January 1998

Levin, Kim. “Voice Choices” (exhibition review), The Village Voice, January 27, 1998

Exhibition catalog, Contemporary Art Series #8, Elliott Green, Krannert Museum, April 1996

Karmel, Pepe. “ Persistence of Pagan Myth in Modern Imagination” (exhibition review), New York Times, December 29,

1995

MacAdam, Barbara A. “Elliott Green: Fawbush Gallery” (exhibition review), Artnews, February 1995

New Observations (New York), No. 105. March-April 1995

Ostrow, Saul. “Strutting their Stuff”, Bomb (New York), Fall 1995

Sillman, Amy. “Drawings: Surrealism & the Current Vernacular”, Zingmagazine (New York), 1995

“Desire”, Visionaire Number 12, Fall 1994

Schaffner, Ingrid. “Cursive”, The Parkett Series with Contemporary Artists, No. 42, 1994

Upshaw, Reagan. “Elliott Green: Fawbush Gallery”, (exhibition review), Art in America No. 12, 1993

Schaffner, Ingrid. Exhibition catalog, Return of the Cadavre Exquis, The Drawing Center, New York, 1993

King, Elaine. Exhibition catalog, The Figure as Fiction, The Contemporary Arts Center, , November 1993

Kimmelman, Michael. “Fever: Exit Art” (exhibition review), New York Times, December 18, 1992

Humphrey, David. “ Elliott Green: Hirschl and Adler Modern” (exhibition review), “New York Fax”,

Art Issues (Los Angeles), Sept/Oct, Number 19, 1991

Handy, Ellen. “Elliott Green: Hirschl and Adler Modern” (exhibition review), Arts, October 1991

Baker, Kenneth. “Galleries: A Promising Quartet of Painters”, San Francisico Chronicle, May 10, 1990

Adams, Brooks. “Preview”, Interview, September 1989

 

FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS AND RESIDENCIES

2016        Yaddo Residency

2011-12  Rome Prize

2010        American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize

2005        Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant

1999        Yaddo Residency

1998        The Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant

1995        Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Grant

1993        John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship

MacDowell Colony Residency

1991        Yaddo Residency