MORRISON GALLERY
Jonathan Perlowsky is represented by the Morrison Gallery (Owner-Director: William Morrison WWW.MORRISONGALLERY.COM 860 927 4501).
Pictured above is an installation view of jonathan’s 2013 exhibition.
recent media. reviews, pics, promotion. observations on 'the nature of the beast'.
the media works in mysterious ways____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
a girl with curves. 14 march, 2019.
everyone loves her: How she mouths the words. She’s the media’s darling: she’s a girl with curves
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snow white lives in our hearts and minds______________________________________________________________________________________________________
…through the media’s grandeur
______________________________________________________The media works in mysterious ways______________________________________________________
where the living, the fictional and The resurrected coexist
The Media...... snow white, Elvis, Princess Di and countless others inhabit in the incorporeal world of the media.
Above: Snow White (Swimmingly). 1988. Oil on Plaster upon birch. 11.25 X 8.75".
Often Chastised by critics for introducing a pop sensibility to the promotion of fine art.
Above: a promotional photo from 1982. this image served as the invitation to jonathan’s exhibit entitled the russian at the westbroadway gallery in nYC. it was also used in advertisement for that show. paloma picasso premiered an uncannily similar ad shortly thereafter.
pretty poison
featured in jonathan’s inaugural morrison showing
from The Russian exhibit at the Westbroadway gallery, NYC. 1982. Lacquer on silver mirror. 25 x 75".
The German Fairy Tale, numbered as Tale 53, but Widely known as Snow White presented a Magic mirror, a glass coffin
and most pertinent to this work- A poisoned Apple.
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The ARTnews magazine reviews:
under the god. 1994. eye shadow on silver mirror with proscenium and chair. 157 x 112 x 47”.
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Since joining the Morrison Gallery in 2008 Jonathan has the distinction of having each of his exhibits there (2009, 2011, 2013) reviewed successively by ARTnews magazine.
ARTnews, founded by James Clarence Hyde in 1902, is the oldest, most widely read magazine devoted to fine art in the world.
It has won forty-three awards in the last three decades including the George Polk Award, the National Magazine Award for general excellence, the National Headliner Award and the National Arts Club distinguished citation for merit.
Immediately below: The first of these reviews.
ARTnews 2009______________________________________________________
Taken to school: 'With works spanning four decades, this exhibition provided a brief seminar in formal, abstract painting'.
*Of note: Eric Bryant (senior editor at ARTnews) took it upon himself to review this exhibit.
Jonathan Perlowsky. Morrison. Kent, Connecticut. Summer, 2009.
With works spanning four decades, this exhibition provided a brief seminar in formal abstract painting. The engaging show brought together highlights from Jonathan Perlowsky's experiments with shaped monochrome canvases, hard-edged stripe compositions, drip paintings and unconventional materials, such as mirrors and glitter. (Continued after illustration of Japanese Eyes, a work from this exhibition).
Introducing the show was the dramatic painting Kashmir (1978), an expanse of pure white more than fifteen feet wide, with two asymmetrical parts jutting at sharp angles in all directions. One seems to reach out directly toward the viewer. Perlowsky has said that calculating such precise forms consumed as much as several months. So by the early eighties he shifted to other adventures, seemingly more influenced by street culture than by the cerebral corners of art history. Works from this period include tall mirrors dripping with Day-Glo washes and canvases painted with graphic shapes recalling stenciled graffiti.
Lessons learned pop up in the artist's later works. The most captivating mid-period piece here, Japanese Eyes (1988), was a six-cornered canvas featuring a central target surrounded by truncated arcs that nearly harmonize the smooth circle and acute corners. In more recent works the mirrors recur in the form of shards- seemingly haphazard piles covered in thick rivulets of paint. It's as if a destructive impulse had infused the wan earlier pieces with energy.
The exhibition's most winning offering was a selection of recent vertical-stripe paintings made of stained and painted birch planks. The rich colors show that the artist has found a balance between his impulses toward brashness and excessive caution. And the manner in which the planks were set against the wall, just slightly askew or augmented with spire-like extensions of their metal frames, demonstrated a new playfulness and subtlety in Perlowsky's approach.
Eric Bryant for ARTnews.
'As if a destructive impulse had infused the pieces'... Hollywood and Vine. above, 1981. Acrylic, oil, lacquer on silver and bronze mirror and bronze glass. 106" on diagonal and (Below) Judy Garland. 1981. Acrylic, oil, lacquer and glitter on silver mirror. 106" on diagonal.
ARTnews Magazine. October, 2009 (continued). Reviews: National. Page 136. The featured painting (pictured below): 6-5-6 (Six-Five-Six). 2009. Piano lacquer on birch. 80 x 84".
As well as new material produced explicitly for the occasion, a number of jonathan’s earlier works were included in the 2009 morrison gallery exhibit. one such (pictured Below) was Rosso Corsa. 1976. Acrylic on canvas. 68.5 x 72".
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next: ARTnews 2013_________________________________________________
Below: ARTnews Magazine. October, 2013. Reviews: National. Pages 115 - 116. The featured painting: The Cimmerian Legend of Baby Blue. 2013. Piano lacquer on birch. 48 x 80".
jonathan perlowsky. morrison. Kent, Connecticut. Summer 2013.
There is a softness to the hard edges of Jonathan Perlowsky's art. this show featured a selection of older works on paper, canvas and wood (most from the seventies) and nine new paintings from 2012 and 2013. In the recent pieces the connecticut-based artist sprayed acrylic and tinted piano lacquer on sheets of birchwood to produce subtle gradations of seemingly self-illuminated color. (Continued after illustration of Bouquet for an Apparition. 2011. Acrylic, Alkyd and dye on birch. 67 x 83". a work from this exhibition).
In Ophelia, the results are light as a feather, with the woods visible grain holding its own as a panel of equal interest and value to the painted stripes. that equanimity of paint and wood grain was carried through four large diptychs on birch, all from 2013. In these works, perlowsky applied paint to only one of the two panels, leaving the second panel as pure wood that offered a textural, organic foil to the vibrant colors on the other side. he also achieved a surprising level of luminescence by mixing the pigments with metallic powder from the turn of the 20th century that he discovered in a warehouse some 40 years ago. in Ghosts and Divinity, flickers of light emanate from within the paint. and the slashes of orange and gold in Valentine's Day (pictured below) coalesce like lava dripping over a flame. (continued after illustration of Valentine's Day. 2013. Piano lacquer and acrylic on birch. 80 x 56").
wuthering heights/nicholas and alexandra. 2013. acrylic, Lacquer, varnish, iridescent powder on silver mirror. 80 x 60”.
wuthering heights is the first and only novel by emily bronte. she died the following year at age 30.
in The Cimmerian Legend of Baby Blue perlowsky applied some of the original lines with a triple-zero brush; the result is extremely subtle and delicate as though the lines "Dissipate practically into nothingness" in the words of the artist. in all his work, the tension between random gestural forms and studied, meticulous lines creates a dramatic dialogue between hard-edge and free-form. indeed the artist has said in an interview that he prefers to "Guide the Color into the space it seeks" with drips that are both controlled and surprising".
Tonia Shoumatoff for ARTnews.
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next: ARTnews 2011__________________________________________________
illustrated below: the mortician's daughter. Her body fell back and slipped down the wall leaving a trail of blood...
The mortician's Daughter.
jonathan perlowsky's work The Mortician's Daughter. 2011. Piano lacquer on birch. 80 x 84". (Pictured Above) was featured as the signature work in ARTnews magazine's review of Group Exhibition 6 at the morrison gallery. the review (Excerpted below) can be found on page 120 of the september, 2011 issue. (Continued after illustration of Tangerine. 1979. Oil on birch. 75 x 25". a Heretofor unseen work).
Coolly simplified realism and abstraction were the focus of this well-chosen and expansive exhibition. For pure geometric abstraction, there was jonathan Perlowsky. Stripes of lacquer cover narrow, vertically cut panes of glass in his Lotus (1990 - 2011) while The Mortician's Daughter (2011) contrasts hard-edged shapes with rose-colored paint.
The following works by Jonathan were included in this exhibition: Japan. (1979). Lotus. (1980). The Pumpkin King. (2009). The Mortician's Daughter. (2011). The Pumpkin King (Piano lacquer, aluminium, Glitter and plastic film on birch. 96 x 92 x 4".) is presented directly below.
Cynthia Nadelman for ARTnews.
Fin
Next: the Media______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Black and white and read all over…
be careful, very careful: Capitol Records rethought The Beatles Yesterday and Today album cover believing it would be misinterpreted by the public.
this (above) became that (Center Inset, below)...
Avoiding difficulty for them.
below: the endearment of irrelevance [finding redemption]. 2015. faux magazine cover. digital rendering. inkjet on paper. 24 x 20.2".
More real than reality: The Media. Editions and multiples. Authenticating reality, Imagined or otherwise.
Knowing what's real. Jonathan Perlowsky's work is made by Jonathan. He has no studio assistants: He does not trace projected images to produce life-like drawings or paintings. He prepares his canvases and panels himself. He does not make 'editions' or multiples. In the case of a digital work: There is only one produced. It is unique and signed by Jonathan.
below: spring (begins). 2014. lacquer on canvas. 68 x 60 x 3”.
Authenticity.
Authentic. Adjective. Of undisputed origin; genuine. "the letter is now accepted as an authentic document. Synonyms: genuine, real, bona fide, true, The real thing.
Reality. Noun. The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional view of them. "He refuses to face reality". Synonyms: The real world, real life, actuality, truth, physical existence. "distinguishing fantasy from reality".
Media can create a new reality that appears authentic: The power and majesty of Art and the media.
Whatever you know you know, you know?... Much of what we know we know through the media. It allows us to see and experience things we do not have first hand knowledge of. It's an art form unto itself and a powerful force. Who knows what impact The Beatles might have had without it; with it they literally changed the world. Art, Authenticity, reality and media are intertwined and defined by their relationship to each other. Allow Bugs to be our guide as few are more dependent upon the media than he.
Authenticity... A cartoon character similar to Bugs appeared in a warner Bros.' cartoon short titled a wild hare in 1940. He was drawn by Tex Avery. Shortly thereafter Bob Givens, also employed by Warner Bros., redesigned Avery's hare creating a rabbit more similar to how we envision Bugs to look today. Over the years numerous different cartoonists, working from these men's notes, have been called upon to draw and refine Bugs. regardless of who’s drawn bugs; we know him when we see him.
below: jonathan’s bugs
robin’s egg blue
you’d be green with envy, wouldn’t you?
knowing i’ve a girl like this upon robin’s egg blue
and a pet to fetch me a stick… or two
from my sea so splendid of robin’s egg blue
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Now Let's really cut some hares:
Reality... Who's more real? Anyone recognize the name Chester Arthur? Is that person real to you? How about Bugs Bunny? Is he real to you? Take a moment to picture each in your mind: Their appearance, personality. Likes and dislikes. How they react to situations. Chester Arthur was flesh and blood. he lived. he died. He was finite. In fact he was the twenty-first president of the United States. Bug's is a drawing. An artists rendition which gained exposure through the media; first in newspaper comic strips and then, once animated, on television and in the cinema. He doesn't breathe. He doesn't bleed. Yet...
i know who’s more real to me. (you too, Snow!)
Fin
rebel rebel. older, wiser______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
jonathan in 1969 and more recently.
A promotional photo: Ides of March, Twenty-Thirteen. Jonathan Perlowsky: Reflecting on four decades.
Portraits of Jonathan and photography on this site (And for the past 34 years... So Very Many Thanks, John): John Kane of Silver Sun Studios.
Additional photography by David Sylvian: Flower. Edgar Winter/The Edgar Winter Group: Album Cover image. They Only come out at night. 1972. Epic Records. The Rolling Stones: Album cover image. Goat's Head Soup. 1973. Rolling Stones Records. Album cover design by Ray Lawrence. Photograph by David Bailey. The photographs of Maila Nurmi courtesy of her archives. Archival photographs of David Bowie. Aladdin Sane. 1973. RCA Records. Album cover design: Brian Duffy, celia philo and Philip Castle. Photography: Brian Duffy. Make-up: Pierre Laroche
Thanks to William Morrison, Charles, and Sara Lasar (Lead photograph: Paintings on paper, Recent media. She also provided the images of Cerulean, Elysian Fields, Dark Shadows and the portrait of William Morrison) of the Morrison Gallery: It's an honor to have such representation.
enlightened. 1985. conte on paper. 32 x 22.5".
jonathan's own Christina's World.
the cloud-witch. 22 january, 2019.
she’s never seen
by light of day
at night you can’t see her
anyway
so for you my friends
she’s been a dear
this once before
she disappears