BravinLee programs is pleased to present its second show of work by Douglas Florian.
Using gouache and collage on gesso-primed brown paper bags, Florian obliquely explores the natural world, referencing geology, meteorology, anatomy, and typography in tactile and often erotically charged pieces. Growth, movement, transformation, and transfiguration seem to emerge spontaneously without formula or premeditation. With painterly textural layers the revealed is played against the concealed, the calligraphic against the static, and t... Read more
BravinLee programs is pleased to present its second show of work by Douglas Florian.
Using gouache and collage on gesso-primed brown paper bags, Florian obliquely explores the natural world, referencing geology, meteorology, anatomy, and typography in tactile and often erotically charged pieces. Growth, movement, transformation, and transfiguration seem to emerge spontaneously without formula or premeditation. With painterly textural layers the revealed is played against the concealed, the calligraphic against the static, and the archaic against the contemporary in emblematic signs and sequences. A playful, childlike rawness and simplicity pervades imagery that seems both strangely foreign and strangely familiar.
About his last exhibition at BravinLee programs in 2008, the New Yorker wrote, “the project was abstruse and irresistible.”
Douglas Florian lives and works in New York City. He has had solo exhibitions at Yeshiva University Museum and at the University of the Arts in Pennsylvania. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Drawing Center, The Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, and at The New York State Museum at Albany. The artist is also well known for his illustrated children’s books.
