Wang Dang Doodle
John Borowicz
August 1-28
Opening Reception: Saturday August 3, 5-7pm.
Dedee Shattuck Gallery is excited to bring you Wang Dang Doodle, a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by John Borowicz. Our August exhibition is a celebration of John’s new work, which playfully explores the traditions of portraiture in a surprising absurdist language.
Since studying University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 1989, and UMass Amherst in 1991, John Borowicz has integrated his meticulous aptitude for classical realism with his fantastic imagination. Alongside Borowicz’s speculative work, he simultaneously creates commissioned portraits and landscapes with a careful sense of detail and form. His focus on the structure, light, and contours of figure and landscape painting inform his departures from realism. The resulting work is playful, but remains successful in its continued exploration of painterly technique.
Borowicz is an undeniable treasure in our Southcoast artist community. For several years he operated a gallery out of his home, nurturing our vibrant local community of artists and art admirers. Although the gallery is no longer operating, Borowicz’s talent and creativity have continued to keep in high regard locally, and have brought him into the national spotlight. He regularly shows at Adam Baumgold gallery in New York, and has had his work featured in many notable magazines included Wired, Versus, Time Out New York, New York Home, Tema Celeste, and New American Paintings.
The birth of his three sons in the past seven years signified a shift in subject matter, attitude, medium and process for Borowicz. A refreshed imagination and sense of humor as well as a childlike approach to exploration and discovery resulted in a body of work he refers to as “Sprawling Conglomerates”. This series features compositions of repeated geometric forms that call forth conceptual issues of landscape through a focus on line, pattern and abstraction.
Borowicz then began to apply the language of "Sprawling Conglomerates" to figure painting. He creates an “alternative anatomy” of geometric and organic forms by achieving an interwoven sensual chaos that retains the order of the traditional figure. He also reintroduces color, an element that had absented from the "conglomerates" but now boldly makes its way back into Wang Dang Doodle.
This exhibition looks at the transition from the "Sprawling Conglomerates" to his current body of work, and includes earlier absurdist figures to contextualize the development of his current technique. Borowicz presents work that makes us laugh and blush. It's the kind of work we just can't stop looking at.
John Borowicz
"What I consider to be my best work inevitably comes at unexpected times and in surprising ways: a slip of the hand in a sketchbook, the meaningless scribble or diversionary exercise, the mistake and that most beautiful state of play. It is in these golden moments, when I lack artfulness or forget that I am an artist, that I become one. The genesis of these paintings came exactly this way. A twisted nest of lines asked me to find a form in it and I just happened to be paying attention."
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Born in 1968 in New Bedford, John Borowicz studied painting at The Universities of Massachusetts at both Amherst and Dartmouth.
Since 2009 the artist has been represented by Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York, which presented the solo exhibition "Sprawling Conglomerates" in 2010. His work has been included in eight group exhibitions at the gallery. Borowicz has participated in a number of other recent group exhibitions, including "The Question Of Drawing" at The Ogunquit Museum of Art (2011); "Bigger" at The Jamestown Arts Center (2012); "Homegrown" at The New Bedford Art Museum (2008); "Grand Opening" and "Small Works" at Dedee Shattuck Gallery (2011 & 2012).
The artist's work has been included in numerous national and international periodicals including New American Paintings, Tema Celeste, New York Home, Wired UK and Versus. Borowicz lives and works in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
Dedeeshattuckgallery@gmail.com | 508. 636. 4177 | 1 Partners' Lane, Westport, MA 02790 | W - Sat, 10 - 5, Sun 12 - 5