EXHIBITION

Man, Boulders and Trees

Frosch&Portmann, New York, New York, 09/09/2015 - 10/18/2015

53 Stanton Street, New York

ABOUT

frosch&portmann is pleased to announce Man, Boulders and Trees, New York based Seth Michael Forman’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.

Seth Michael Forman’s paintings are at once inviting and unsettling, nostalgic and familiar, yet somehow not.  Each painting seems to invite the viewer to ponder the simplicity of the images—landscapes with only one or two figures present—only to slowly realize that something is amiss. 

The title of the painting “Man, Boulders and Trees,” after which this exhibition is eponymously titled, is simply a description of the elements depicted in the painting. Yet this small, dark, and almost claustrophobic image’s true subject seems to be the emotional intensity that one experiences from its unusual composition. What exactly is that man doing, almost hidden behind a cluster of weighty boulders at night?

In “My Deer,” the middle-aged man in a sweatshirt isn’t kissing a deer, is he?  In “Meeting on Bear Hill,” it’s clear that a man has met up with a black bear, but why is the man as naked as the bear? At first glance they are wrestling, perhaps a Romantic depiction of “man against nature”. Or is this moonlit evening more appropriate for lovers dancing on the snow-covered hill?  And is that a smile on that bear’s face, who bares neither teeth nor claws?

And it is not just the subject of these paintings that draws one’s attention.  It is also the technique.  These oil paintings are unabashedly and refreshingly old-fashioned.  At the same time, the technique fits the content: an internal world of dreams, memories, and imagination.  

 

For More Information

APT ARTISTS ON VIEW

Seth Michael Forman

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