Tag: Nunu Fine Art

Nunu Hung’s Year of Ambition, Intellectual Depth and Unapologetic Openness

[ad_1]

Nunu Hung at Nunu Fine Art Taipei. Courtesy Nunu Fine Art

In a city like New York, where cultural capital is theoretically abundant, the gallery world can still feel like a closed system, calibrated for insiders already fluent in its coded language. What makes Nunu Fine Art stand out in that crowded ecosystem isn’t just its program, which is rigorous and international in scope, but the warmth with which visitors are received and the seriousness with which their curiosity is treated. There is a generosity to the space and to its founder, Nunu Hung, who operates her gallery less as a transactional environment and more as a place for sustained engagement, where the art of conversation is as important as the art on the walls.

Hung founded the gallery in Taipei in 2014 after seeing how local audiences were often cut off from meaningful engagement with global contemporary art. In particular, it was the lack of exhibitions featuring internationally established artists that motivated her to create a gallery that could connect those audiences and artists to the global art discourse. Her commitment to cultural translation quickly became the gallery’s defining characteristic, as Hung introduced American and European artists to Taiwan while simultaneously helping Taiwanese and Asian artists more broadly achieve widespread recognition.

She expanded into New York almost three years ago, with a 3,000-square-foot space on Broome Street, becoming the first Taiwanese dealer to establish a permanent gallery presence in the city. Today, Hung is candid about her priorities. “Part of why I came to New York to open the gallery is because I wanted to place my artists within the museum system,” she said when I visited the gallery last month to catch up and walk through “Mia Westerlund Roosen: Then and Now” (which closes this weekend). I also wanted to see the tightly curated Project Space presentation showcasing four Taiwanese artists—Chiao-Han Chueh, Guan-Hong Lu, Shida Kuo and En-Man Chang—whose work has recently entered museum collections. “Mia and Rona Pondick, for example, built careers through museums, through the curatorial ideas, and so I’ve spent a lot of time and energy visiting museums, speaking with curators and developing exhibitions that can help position our artists within that institutional context,” she added.

Mia Westerlund Roosen’s Heat (background) and Conical (foreground), both from 1981, installed at Nunu Fine Art. Photo: Martin Seck, courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art

It’s a strategy that requires patience, but also one that tends to pay off, and that long view is evident in the gallery’s roster, which spans generations and continents, from established figures like Petah Coyne, Rona Pondick, Peter Zimmermann and Kees Goudzwaard to emerging and underrecognized artists whose work complicates dominant narratives of contemporary art. The gallery’s 2026 programming reflects Hung’s intellectual ambition. After the Westerlund Roosen show, the New York space will host a three-person exhibition organized in collaboration with Sonnabend and Ubu Gallery that places Hans Bellmer’s psychologically charged photographs alongside Bruce Nauman’s videos and Pondick’s sculptures, tracing a lineage of artists who have used the body as a site of both formal and political inquiry. Subsequent exhibitions will highlight Nancy Bowen’s materially layered investigations of craft and myth, Yu-Wen Wu’s meditations on migration and identity and Madeline Jiménez Santil’s sculptural interventions into systems of cultural meaning and displacement.

Hung is always quick to emphasize that while selling is important, galleries should function not just as commercial spaces but as platforms for experimentation and, more importantly, dialogue between artists and audiences who might otherwise never encounter one another. What follows are insights into how this year’s programming came together and what the gallery is doing to support and amplify artists beyond the shows.

In New York, you created an all-women program for 2026. What prompted that decision, and what conversations do you hope it inspires?

When I opened my first gallery in Taipei in 2014, my inaugural exhibition, “Holy and Profane,” featured six women artists from around the world, each at a very different stage in her career. This show set the tone for what would become a core part of my curatorial identity and my mission at Nunu Fine Art. As a Taiwanese woman working within the global arts landscape, it has always been crucial to me to not only highlight women artists, but also a cross-section of emerging and established voices from diverse cultural backgrounds.

This perspective naturally informed the decision to dedicate our 2026 program to women artists. It’s not a shift in direction so much as an extension of the gallery’s longstanding commitment to showcasing multicultural, intergenerational and diverse artistic viewpoints. The program brings together artists with whom we have already formed deep, ongoing relationships, such as Rona Pondick, whose work we’re excited to recontextualize in a new light, alongside artists we are collaborating with for the first time, such as Mia Westerlund Roosen and Madeline Jiménez Santil.

Rona Pondick in her studio. Courtesy of the artist

How did you approach selecting the artists for the 2026 lineup? Are there threads, conceptual, historical or material, that connect their practices across generations and geographies?

This will be Nunu Fine Art’s third year in New York, and we wanted each exhibition to have a strong curatorial focus and concept. Each show demonstrates that the relationship between art and identity is complex. The artists draw on personal histories, lived experiences and broader social and cultural narratives to engage with many rich topics, including the body, migration, identity and decolonization.

For me, the connection between these artists is not grounded in any single conceptual or material similarity. Rather, each artist meaningfully engages with the world around her in a way that is singular and thought-provoking. Their work sparks ideas and conversations that I find invigorating, and given that my primary goal as a gallerist is to foster dialogue, I was compelled to present them within the stimulating intellectual context of New York.

The program spans generations; what does this generational range let you say about women’s contributions to contemporary art?

The generational span indicates that the quality of women’s artwork has not changed. Women artists have made and continue to make challenging, exciting work that stimulates and enriches our cultural conversation. The primary difference, particularly when looking at recent history, is the visibility these artists have been afforded. Women artists are only now being given the exposure necessary to showcase their exceptional work, and I am very excited that Nunu Fine Art has the opportunity to work with these brilliant artists.

The program opens with a solo exhibition of Mia Westerlund Roosen and closes with a show of Madeline Jiménez Santil’s work. What inspired you to bookend next year’s program with those artists in particular?

Though Mia Westerlund Roosen and Madeline Jiménez Santil seem to have distinct concerns, they engage with space in similar ways. They share an interest in exploring how the body navigates and responds to objects. Westerlund Roosen provokes visceral reactions in the viewer by using highly textured materials, manipulating scale and referencing human body parts, either obliquely or directly, through her forms. Meanwhile, Jiménez Santil investigates the relationship between her own body, surrounding space and geometry.

Nancy Bowen’s From the Deep will be on view in the gallery in June. Courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art

Including Boston-based Taiwanese artist Yu-Wen Wu feels timely, given everything going on in the U.S. right now. What drew you to include Wu in the 2026 program, and how do you see her work conversing with the other artists in the season?

Yu-Wen Wu was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the U.S. at a young age. Wu’s immigrant experience is central to her practice, which, in her words, creates “an intersection of personal narrative and global discourse.” As an immigrant myself, living and working between Taiwan and the U.S., this exhibition feels deeply personal, especially given that our gallery on Broome Street is located just steps from Chinatown. Wu’s work resonates deeply with our local community and gallery visitors, many of whom are Asian or Asian American. Now, more than ever, it is crucial for me to support artists whose experiences are shaped by immigration.

Yu-Wen Wu’s exhibition will also complement our Project Space, a dedicated space on the gallery’s lower level that highlights experimental voices from Asia and the Asian diaspora. I’m honored to share that many of our Asian artists, such as Chiao-Han Chueh, Shida Kuo and En-Man Chang, have recently had their works acquired by major museums, ensuring their work will reach even more diverse audiences.

How does the New York Project Space program there expand or contrast with the main gallery’s 2026 curatorial direction?

I’ve been thrilled by what Project Space has accomplished thus far. We inaugurated the space with an exhibition for the contemporary art collective Alchemyverse, a duo of artists from China, who explored how natural forces have shaped human perceptions of time, materiality and life itself through a multisensory installation that transformed their research into drawings, photographs and an immersive platform at the center of the room. In the first year, we showed artists such as Taiwanese painter Guan-Hong Lu and Mimian Hsu, who was born and raised in Costa Rica.

Most recently, we presented Indigenous Taiwanese artist En-Man Chang’s work, “Mapping Snail,” which is a continuation of her project shown at documenta 15 in Kassel in 2022. Combining video and embroidery, the exhibition explored the impacts of urbanization on Taiwan’s Indigenous communities through the motif of the Giant African Snail, offering a socially and politically resonant reflection on displacement, land sovereignty and cultural resilience.

Building on the momentum of Chang’s show, we plan to feature more artists whose work brings visibility to critical social issues that often go overlooked. With Project Space now past its one-year milestone, we are also looking ahead, with the goal of expanding and diversifying the artists we present, reaching across a wider range of geographies in Asia.

Nunu Fine Art Taipei is reopening with a renovated space—what can you tell us about that?

The Taipei gallery underwent a months-long renovation, and we are thrilled to inaugurate the new space with an exhibition by Manila-based Filipino and Spanish artist Jose John Santos III. I first visited the studio that he and his wife, Pam, shared in 2011, and Pam was one of the artists featured in the inaugural exhibition of my Taipei gallery. It feels truly full circle to now present John’s work in celebration of our new space.

Following Santos, we will host an exhibition by German artist Peter Zimmermann. We presented his first exhibition in Asia in 2015, and I’m honored to mark that anniversary with an exhibition of his new work in our renovated space. The response to his work in Asia has been tremendous. Audiences have deeply connected with his evocative epoxy resin images. As the first gallery in Taipei with a distinctly multicultural outlook, we have been honored to play a defining role in introducing artists from around the world to Asian audiences. Over the past decade, our Taipei space has premiered the first solo shows in the region for Peruvian textile artist Ana Teresa Barboza and Cuban artist duo Ariamna Contino and Alex Hernández Dueñas, among others.

What do you hope audiences understand about the gallery’s identity when they look back on the full arc of the 2026 program in both Taipei and New York City?

At its core, Nunu Fine Art is both a multidisciplinary and multicultural community, an identity reflected in our 2026 programs across both galleries. The program is more than simply a series of individual exhibitions that end once they are deinstalled, and when audiences look back on the full arc of the year, I hope they see a space deeply committed to intergenerational, intersectional and global narratives. I’ve been thinking about how we can continue to support and amplify these artists beyond the exhibition itself, and how we can keep conversations alive by placing artists in dialogue with one another, whether through gallery events or printed publications.

In support of this longstanding commitment to multidisciplinary and cross-cultural storytelling, our gallery publishes a quarterly print publication titled Nupaper. Each issue provides an in-depth introduction to the gallery’s current exhibition, a behind-the-scenes exploration of the artist’s process and supplemental essays by writers and art historians. Looking ahead, we also hope to pursue a more rigorous publication program, building on the innovative biographical catalogue we debuted for Rodney Dickson’s exhibition “PAINTINGS” in 2024. This past year, we also launched a monthly event called Writer’s Stage, which brings writers, artists and other creatives into the gallery to share their literary work and engage in thoughtful discussions with audiences.

The catalogue for “Bellmer Nauman Pondick: Material Desire.” Courtesy Nunu Fine Art

More Arts Interviews

[ad_2]

Christa Terry

Source link

February 19, 2026
Mia Westerlund Roosen’s Ongoing Material Inquiry

[ad_1]

Mia Westerlund Roosen’s Heat (background) and Conical (foreground), both from 1981, on view at Nunu Fine Art. Photo: Martin Seck, courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art

Multidisciplinary artist Mia Westerlund Roosen’s early career unfolded against the backdrop of Minimalism’s heyday, but her work diverged sharply from the austere, industrial ethos of contemporaries like Donald Judd and Robert Morris, whose machine-informed processes and commitment to art for art’s sake. Where their work was polished, rigid and cold, hers, while similarly monumental, was organic, sensual, tactile and emotional, referencing or evoking geological forms, flesh and other earthly materials.

For another week, you can see some of her work at Nunu Fine Art in New York (including pieces first shown in 1982 at the Leo Castelli Gallery, where she was shown alongside Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Bruce Nauman). Most striking are the monumental horns arching up from the floor at the back of the gallery: Conical (1981), the smaller of the two, appears to have been excised, perhaps violently, from its source, and Heat (1981), which seems to protrude intact from the floor, as if heralding the arrival of some massive beast. Postminimalist to the extreme, both exude a viscerality that invites one to imagine where these objects have been and what their purpose might be now.

The same is true of Sac (2019), a smaller-scale piece that resembles nothing so much as a deflating penis on first glance, hinting at the fragility of humanity. Yet the sagging flannel and resin are only a conduit into a dense concrete cave-like core. What, one wonders, is this thing; why is it here and what is it for?

Mia Westerlund Roosen, Untitled Drawing 2, 1975. Oil stick, pastel, and charcoal on paper, 13 x 7 in. / 33 x 17.8 cm., Framed: 17 1/4 x 13 1/4 in. / 33.7 x 43.8 cm. Courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art

Westerlund Roosen’s practice, of course, encompasses more than sculpture. The exhibition includes rarely shown drawings that offer a glimpse into the artist’s ongoing exploration of materiality. Some of the most compelling appear at first to be preliminary sketches of her large-scale works but were actually rendered after the sculptures they reference were complete—portraits of the material properties of her three-dimensional pieces. Similarly, the drawings in her Gray Series I–V explore asphalt, concrete and fiber, capturing the physical realities of these materials in two dimensions with profound depth. “For her, it’s kind of like building something,” Nunu Hung of Nunu Fine Art told me during a tour of “Mia Westerlund Roosen: Then and Now.” “She has chalk or a pencil, and she just keeps putting layers on, and building out the work just like making a sculpture.”

Now in her 80s, Westerlund Roosen continues her material experimentation, splitting her time between a home upstate near the Massachusetts border and a studio in New York City that I was lucky enough to visit after walking through the exhibition. There, I was able to see more of her work: Column I and II and the vulvular Marble I from 2019 and pieces from her striking and unsettling Box series. Much like her creations, the artist is equal parts engaging and inscrutable, telling me she prefers to let her pieces do the communicating. “After all,” she said, “if you could talk about it, you wouldn’t make it.” But talk we did, and she was gracious enough to answer my questions about her early experimentation, her process and her newest work.

You emerged as a sculptor in a period dominated by Minimalism. What compelled you to resist the prevailing industrial, geometric norms to pursue a more organic, embodied visual language?

For me, rigid geometries and perfectly straight lines resist emotion, while I was in search of a more emotional response, albeit through reductive form. I felt that my process-based works were, in a way, antithetical to Minimalism, because they were more expressive. My work seeks to engage the senses directly, rather than the intellect.

Your pieces often evoke tension between presence and absence or weight and collapse. What is it about these contrasts in particular that fascinates you?

The paradoxes inherent in those pieces are always exciting to me. The interplay between the blatant and the poetic, or the aggressive and the humorous, sparks curiosity that keeps them continuously intriguing. For example, Heat is simultaneously aggressive and humorous; humor plays a huge role in my work, and it is the unexpected combination of those two qualities that I hope engages the viewer, as well.

Mia Westerlund Roosen, Maquette for Baritone, 1983. Concrete and lead, 12 x 15 x 6 in. / 30.5 x 38.1 x 15.2 cm. Photo: Martin Seck, courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art

Many of the drawings in the show aren’t preparatory studies but two-dimensional renderings of sculpture already brought to life. How do you approach the relationship between sculpture and drawing in your practice?

I think in three dimensions first. My preparatory studies are in clay, and those are often later translated into larger pieces, while my drawings are generally a separate yet related practice. Sculpture for me is the investigation of different densities in terms of material and perception, as well as trying to endow the material with a sense of aliveness or agency, and I often am looking for the same qualities in my drawing. Whether through encaustic, charcoal or pastel, I’m attempting to capture depth and layers beneath the surface.

You’ve sometimes resisted being overly explanatory when it comes to underlying themes in your work. Why?

My personal feeling is that over-explanation from the artist can come across as heavy-handed or didactic, and suppress the mystery and poetry of a work. I would rather the viewer feel what I’m trying to get across, rather than think it.

Looking back on your long career, what do you hope contemporary audiences take away from seeing works from different decades in dialogue with one another?

I feel that my practice is very generative in the sense that many works will come directly from the previous one. While I’m varying the forms, one idea will often come from another, and I hope that viewers can sense the common threads between those differing bodies of work.

Are there particular themes or materials you plan to explore more deeply in future work?

I’m working on new pieces that push the idea of absence and presence via process or chance-based expression, in a similar vein to my sculpture Sac from 2019, which is in the exhibition. I think the combination of the translucent skin of the resin-soaked flannel and the weighty concrete is an area where I can push scale further and bigger. This new series is large-scale and rooted in the earth, but it still utilizes translucent materials that play with light and allow light to penetrate the surface. I’m very inspired by Richard Serra, and often think of how I can use that method of engaging with the body and space, but make it a little bit softer.

More Arts Interviews

[ad_2]

Christa Terry

Source link

February 13, 2026
A Legacy in Political Cartoon: ‘Darcy & Darcy: In Monochrome’ at Nunu Fine Art

[ad_1]

“Darcy & Darcy: In Monochrome” is at Nunu Fine Art through Courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art New York

Brad Darcy still remembers family dinners where the television news was always on, his father’s sharp eyes glued to the screen, taking in the day’s events. Afterward, his father, Thomas F. Darcy, would invite all the children into his studio to critique his latest political cartoon. “He valued our opinions, even as kids,” Brad Darcy recalls. “We grew up knowing he was doing really important work, but it came with risks—death threats over mail and calls, and moving houses often to stay safe.”

Thomas F. Darcy (1932-2000) considered himself a “newsman,” as Brad recalls. He first worked in the advertising industry before shifting to editorial cartooning at the daily newspaper Newsday. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1970 for his penetrating works addressing the Vietnam War and racial discrimination. This was followed by the Best Cartoon on Foreign Affairs Award in 1970 and 1973, a Meeman Conservation Award in 1972 and 1974, and a National Headliner Award in 1974. Thomas F. Darcy’s works cover a broad spectrum of topics, from the Vietnam War and racism to nuclear arms. Known for incisive and witty political commentary, Darcy’s cartoons offer a sharp perception of the contemporary milieu.

Illustrations by Brad Darcy. Courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art New York

When his fourth son, Brad Darcy, was born in 1969, Darcy realized that Brad was a rebel. Brad did not follow his father’s or brothers’ footsteps to become an art director or cartoonist. Instead, he studied at The Fashion Institute of Technology and then pursued an education in computer art at the School of Visual Arts. He considered his illustrations as spontaneous “automatic drawings.”

Nearly twenty-four years after his death, Darcy’s work is being exhibited alongside his son’s in “Darcy & Darcy: In Monochrome,” currently on view at Nunu Fine Art New York through August 24. The show features over 120 of Darcy’s original editorial cartoons from the postwar decades and more than 50 of Brad Darcy’s black-and-white works on paper depicting his spontaneous “automatic drawing” sessions.

At a time when students worldwide are protesting on campuses in response to the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict, the show is timely. It invites viewers to reflect on the anti-war movement, both past and present, challenging the status quo with a blend of humor and critique. The simplicity of black lines on white paper distills complex subjects to their essence, making the work both accessible and profoundly impactful.

SEE ALSO: One Fine Show – ‘Raqib Shaw Ballads of East and West’ at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston

One striking element in the gallery is a series of letters from the White House signed by Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (38th U.S. president from 1974 to 1977) and Richard Nixon (37th U.S. president from 1969 to 1974), displayed in a case on the left. Darcy made several pieces mocking the government’s inactions and corruption related to the war, expressing a deeply anguished atmosphere, as corruption, spying and skepticism became public preoccupations—issues that remain relevant today.

Despite the satirical nature of Darcy’s work, Nixon was a fan. In a letter sent on June 11, 1969, Nixon wrote: “Dear Mr. Darcy, I am delighted to have your ‘honeymoon’ cartoon. I understand that in the absence of the original, you very generously drew another for me, and I am very grateful for the time and efforts this thoughtful gesture must have required.”

Thomas F. Darcy, Political Cartoon 694, August 11, 1969; Ink and Zip-a-tone on illustration board. Courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art New York

In a piece titled “Political Cartoon 694” (August 11, 1969), Darcy masterfully encapsulates the tension between authoritarian power and youthful protest. The cartoon features a stern, authoritarian leader, possibly a military general, seated at a desk labeled “Super Powers Inc.,” with a backdrop of peace-sign-carrying student protestors. The bold lines and intricate detailing on the uniform and the leader’s expression emphasize Darcy’s skill in conveying authority and disdain. The caption, “Silly kids think they can change the world overnight!” reflects the dismissive attitude of the establishment towards the anti-war movement, capturing the generational and ideological divide of the era. The stark mention of a “20 MINUTE WARNING FOR TOTAL NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION” underscores the looming threat of nuclear war during the Cold War period, critiquing the government’s prioritization of power and war over public sentiment and peace. This cartoon not only highlights Darcy’s incisive and witty political commentary but also resonates with contemporary issues, echoing current student movements and global political tensions.

Thomas F. Darcy, Political Cartoon 1316, February 11, 1973; Ink, pencil, and Zip-a-tone on illustration board. Courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art New York

In another piece titled “Political Cartoon 1316” (February 11, 1973), the artist confronts the stark realities faced by Vietnam War veterans. The image depicts a slumped, heroin-addicted veteran lying against a brick wall, with a discarded syringe beside him. Above, a billboard ironically reads, “Help A Veteran…Buy A Poppy,” highlighting the hollow gestures of support offered by society. The detailed rendering of the veteran’s posture and the stark text on his jacket serves as a powerful commentary on the neglect and struggles faced by those who served. Through this piece, Darcy not only critiques the superficiality of societal support but also evokes empathy and awareness of the ongoing plight of war veterans. The cartoon remains a powerful and relevant reminder of the human cost of conflict and the failures of societal and governmental support systems.

Of course, Darcy’s work drew controversy. In a letter from the Houston Post’s news director on Oct. 5, 1966, Williams J. Woestendiek wrote, “Darcy… I am sure [he was] the best editorial cartoonist Houston ever had. However, the cartoon that appealed so much to you and to EDITOR & PUBLISHER proved to be too strong for Houston blood and Darcy is no longer with us.”

Throughout his career, Darcy worked at multiple news outlets, such as the Phoenix Gazette, Houston Post, and Philadelphia Bulletin, but his longest tenure was at Newsday, a daily New York newspaper serving primarily Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island. Due to the emotional toll carried in his work, Darcy had a series of nervous breakdowns when he worked as a political cartoonist at Newsday.

“1964-1972. Hurricanes end. Sunshowers. No longer the free, lyrical flight of the gull, high above the outstretched horizon, motionless for a moment, then, unwilling to fix itself in time glides, rolling out into a deep, graceful arc, knowing no boundaries,” he wrote in his op-ed titled “After Recovery, the years of Judgment” in Newsday during the post-war period (year not clear).

Thomas F. Darcy, Political Cartoon 1045, 1969-1980; Ink on illustration board/photostat. Courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art New York

As his son Brad Darcy comments, Darcy’s work was a form of activism, “driven by the plight of the less fortunate,” where race and gender issues are two common themes in his work.

In “Political Cartoon 1045” (1969-1980), Darcy delivers a biting commentary on gender wage disparity through a humorous yet poignant scenario. The cartoon depicts a female robber holding up a man, who raises his hands in surrender while stating, “I’ll give you 62 percent of what I gave a male robber yesterday.” The juxtaposition of the woman’s assertive posture against the man’s submissive one effectively critiques the systemic undervaluation of women’s work.

Thomas F. Darcy, Political Cartoon 1359, 1969-1980; Ink on illustration board/photostat. Courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art New York

In “Political Cartoon 1359” (1969-1980), Darcy tackles the sensitive and critical issue of the FBI’s harassment of Martin Luther King. The cartoon portrays a contemplative King juxtaposed with a sinister figure handing him a note that reads, “KING: WE SUGGEST YOU COMMIT SUICIDE…OR ELSE!” The caption below, “Tell me again about your impartial investigation of my death…” adds a chilling irony to the piece. The somber expression on King’s face, rendered with careful attention to detail, conveys a deep sense of injustice and the burden of surveillance he endured. This piece serves as a reminder of the lengths to which the establishment would go to silence dissent and control narratives, making it a powerful example of Darcy’s ability to confront uncomfortable truths through his art.

While Tom Darcy’s works lay the foundation, his son Brad Darcy’s contributions to the exhibition bring a modern sensibility to the themes his father explored. The younger Darcy’s works are more spontaneous and free in expression. He created a form of “autonomous drawing session,” where he channels his creativity in concentrated bursts timed with the full moon. This unique process, motivated by the higher tides and intensified thoughts during the full moon, has become a ritual for Darcy. Over the past five years, he has dedicated one session per month, often lasting four to five hours, during which he produces around 50 drawings. His approach has evolved from filling each page with multiple small drawings to focusing on one larger drawing per page, capturing a stream of consciousness. By maintaining a 9×12″ format, he ensures his ideas are quickly and fluidly transferred to paper, reflecting a raw, uninterrupted flow of thought.

Darcy’s “Claw Myself a Rainbow” (2018) is an evocative piece that embodies the essence of his automatic drawing sessions. Utilizing basic art supplies such as pens, pencils, brushes, markers and ink, Darcy crafts a spontaneous and dynamic linear composition. The lines appear fluid and free, mapping out unconscious terrains rather than rendering detailed representations. The title suggests a struggle for peace amidst chaos, a theme echoed in the vigorous, almost frantic lines that make up the figure. The abstract forms coalesce into a vaguely human shape, hands raised in a gesture that can be interpreted as both pleading and defiant. Darcy’s quote accompanying the piece reinforces this interpretation: “The feelings I feel and the thoughts that flow through my mind are distilled to a point where my heart almost blindly relays a secret message to my hand… I don’t draw my thoughts and feelings, they draw me.”

Brad Darcy, Claw Myself a Rainbow, 2018; Ink on paper. Courtesy the artist and Nunu Fine Art New York

“Darcy & Darcy: In Monochrome” successfully brings together the distinct artistic practices of father and son. While Thomas F. Darcy’s cartoons are rooted in the sociopolitical issues of his era, Brad Darcy’s automatic drawings explore the intricacies of human consciousness. The exhibition’s monochromatic palette of black lines on white paper creates a visual harmony that underscores the thematic connections between their works. Both artists, through their concise portrayals, engage viewers in a deeper contemplation of complex subjects, highlighting the power of simplicity in conveying profound ideas.

[ad_2]

Xintian Wang

Source link

July 8, 2024