Terry Rodgers
Unbounded
June 21 – July 19, 2008
Nicola Von Senger Gallery is proud to present Terry Rodgers’ newest work, The Fluid Matrix of Bounded Latitudes (2008). Rodgers (b. 1947, Newark, NJ, USA) is a skilled draughtsman steeped in the tradition of figurative painting whose meticulously rendered works have caused quite a stir in recent years. His larger-than-life tableaus impart us with what at first glance appears to be an insightful view into affluent society - a scene exuding luxury, beauty and sex. But a closer look reveals the cracks in this illusory glamorous world and we’re confronted with the underlying tension and discontentment within the scene. In the artist’s words: “I’m trying to paint a picture of the fiction that our culture lives.”
The paintings play with our collective perceptions of success and happiness – half-naked models suggest a generic, provocative availability as do the photos in fashion magazines with which we’re confronted daily. Rodgers’ scenes are choreographed with such intensity that the overflow of stimuli has a nearly unmasking effect. Status symbols abound yet the painting still emanates a peculiar emptiness and yearning; the figures gaze obliquely in the distance, renouncing eye contact with the viewer and thus leaving no opportunity for communication. Rodgers does not attempt to pass judgment on his subjects, rather, through his precise observations and incisive recreations of the scene, he leads the viewer to come to his own conclusions. It is precisely this perceptible sensibility which the artist affords his models that lessens the cynical streak in his work.
While well-known personalities of the glamour world appear repeatedly in Rodgers’ fictitious VIP parties, Rodgers also finds many of his subjects on the street. Beginning with photography, then carefully orchestrating the images on the computer before painting, Rodgers brings figures from different milieu together in a single, complex scene. The dense compositions characteristic of his paintings amplify the feeling of a hyper-realistic universe populated by icons of our world. Rodgers’ compacted, intensive paintings formally allude to the Old Masters like Rubens or Tiepolo and take part in the long tradition of reflecting current social phenomena through art.
“This painting, with its flowing drapery, intertwined figures and complex rhythms, sets a very modern scene in a visual matrix that ties together physical, emotional, social and hints of the historical aspects of our world. In its very complexity and energy it suggests the fluidity and turbulence that characterizes both our lives and the movement of history.But the key to the painting is the conundrum of “Bounded Latitudes.” First, it refers to where this is all happening, latitude merely referring to a location. But then the other meaning of latitude is freedom, liberty, license. As always, we operate within innumerable boundaries. Our vision of freedom is a fiction. We are only, and can only, live freely within the constraints that we take in from our culture.” Terry Rodgers, April, 2008
Rémi Jaccard
Translation: Elaine Vogel Keller, May 2008
For further information and images please contact the gallery: info@nicolavonsenger.com
