Showing through this weekend at the 555 West 24th Street location of the Gagosian Gallery in New York is a solo from Dan Colen entitled Miracle Paintings. Considered one of the foremost members of the so called “Bowery School” or “Warhol’s Children” generation of artists, the locally based artist continues to explore “to what extent does art come from the artist, and to what extent does it arise from forces independent of the artist.” These latest large scale paintings are based on mythic Fantasia movie from Disney, so it comes to no surprise that viewers can see bursts of magic, ghostly figures, and other supernatural forces and elements making appearances.
The artist states – “I wanted these paintings to reveal themselves during the making, similar to how the trash paintings came to be. I was thinking about alchemy. So there’s this juggling act; I’m starting and often ending with an image, but the oil paint and the process of using that oil paint will open up the possibility for the artwork to take a new direction.”
Discuss Dan Colen here.
