Michael Bevilacqua
Black Studio
13.10.05 - 17.12.05
New works from Michael Bevilacqua's studio in New York have arrived at Galleri Faurschou, and this second exhibition of his here, is an exciting follow-up on his fine solo-show at the Louisiana Museum in Humlebæk this summer.
As the title indicates, it is primarily the artist's studio that has been focal point and inspiration for the works in this show.
While the exhibition at the Louisiana Museum in many ways marked a completed era in his work, with the strong colour compositions and the many references to Pop Culture, these new works seems to a higher extent to express an artistic self-reflection. We meet a widened colour palette and a greater openness in the compositions.
In several of the works we are invited into Michael Bevilacqua's studio, and often it is the very basic language of painting that dominates such as: the studio walls, the blank canvas, the paint pots and still life objects.
For this exhibition Michael Bevilacqua has been experimenting with letting out the day light from his studio by covering the windows with black cardboard and using only one light projector as source of light. This has literally meant seeing things in a new light, and opening up for unexpected and exciting "mistakes" in the choice of colour.
In the new works, he still combines his characteristic, sharp-edged and very graphic figuration with more loose brushstrokes. His works still refer to his own life and art, music and Pop Culture, but there are also affectionate references to another studio artist; the eccentric modernist painter Giorgio Morandi, who painted bottles, jars and jugs in his attic studio for almost a lifetime.
Michael Bevilacqua's reflections on painting are expressed in a very personal way when Michael Bevilacqua substitutes the classic still life objects with the beautiful decorated plastic coffee cups from his local coffee shop in Brooklyn, or when his own sculptures re-appear on the canvas or even when earlier works of art are made into stickers which are then used on coloured bottles and vases in the new paintings.