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Chris Zitelli Last Works: The Jourdan House Cottage, 1906

Colored pencil on paper 8.25 x 10.75 inches

In Concentrated, Fri-Sun 1-6, through April 21.

#Chris Zitelli #galerie manque #56 Bogart #Bushwick Galleries

Opening Friday, April 5: Concentrated

Opening reception: April 5, 6-8 p.m. Exhibition continues through April 21.

Chris Zitelli Last Works: Simeon’s Song of Praise, 1669

Colored pencil on paper 10.75 x 7.25 inches

#Chris Zitelli #galerie manque #56 Bogart #Bushwick Galleries

Concentrated

April 5 – 21

Galerie Manqué presents Concentrated, an exhibition of small-scale, painstakingly-rendered drawings by six artists. The show’s title refers to both the focused, concentrated effort involved in creating each piece as well as the compressed space within which it exists. The works were created using a variety of methodical, programmatic or concept-driven parameters, with results ranging from social observation to meditations on the nature of drawing. The artists include Butt Johnson, Casey Jex Smith, Chris Zitelli, Claire Jervert, Dana Piazza and Daren Keene.

Butt Johnson’s colorful drawings are made with marker, ballpoint and gel ink pens atop a network of dry ballpoint embossed lines. When seen from a distance, the initial impression is that of a spontaneous gestural sketch made with a few brightly-colored markers. On closer inspection, one can see each apparently impromptu line is composed of hundreds of minute parallel lines of different colors that traverse the patterned embossing; the drawing becomes an extraordinarily deliberate analysis and recreation of the appearance of spontaneity.

The near-horror vacui feel of Casey Jex Smith’s work can perhaps be viewed as the consequence of the number of cultural influences and references it contains: illustrated Bibles, Dungeons & Dragons manuals, Dürer engravings, Agnes Martin paintings, Mormon architecture, NASA photos, The Lord of the Rings, Sunday School flannel-board cut-outs. All these elements are synthesized into works that Smith views as allegories of real-life scenarios in which the individual is manipulated, controlled or squashed by institutional power structures.

The two drawings by Chris Zitelli are from his Last Works series, faithful copies of the presumed final paintings of a number of old masters. While maintaining a remarkable fidelity to the structure and detail of the originals, Zitelli has recreated these works using a “rainbow lead” pencil, which removes all control over the color that the pencil deposits on the paper at any given moment. The gradually built-up layers of color produce a final effect that is subtly disorienting, somewhat like misaligned color separations in an otherwise high-quality reproduction.

Claire Jervert’s 2 x 5 inch Conté pencil drawings depict the interiors of various rooms in what are sometimes called “billionaire bunkers”—luxurious underground shelters in which the superwealthy can take refuge in the event of an ecological, economic or terror-precipitated catastrophe. (On exhibit are an entertainment room and wine cellar.) The general feel of the work is that of a glossy magazine pictorial displaying high-end architectural interiors, while the minuscule scale suggests the relative insignificance and vanity of this gesture in the face of global collapse.

The patterns-as-structures within the brush drawings of Dana Piazza are essentially self-determined. The placement of each new mark is determined by its surrounding marks. Drawn with fluid, transparent paint on non-absorbent paper, short line segments are arranged to resemble woven structures. The paint naturally pools at the end of each segment, darkening the end like a shadow and creating the illusion of three-dimensionality.

Daren Keene’s pair of pencil drawings are two units from a much larger, ongoing project (currently numbering 300+ contiguous sheets of 11” x 8.5” paper) that presents an almost microscopically-detailed aerial view of an imaginary city: Pencilvania. Every mark has been deliberately placed and represents a specific element within Keene’s metropolis—trees, roads, bridges, houses, gardens, rivers, mountains and more. Keene is self-taught in both art and urban planning.

The exhibition is organized by Galerie Manqué curator George Metesky.