Body Language

During March and April, George Adams Gallery will present an invitational group exhibition featuring the work of 18 artists whose work explores figurative representation and bodily gesture. Ranging from an early Adolph Gottlieb pictogram with body shapes and parts appearing within a primitivist grid to a new bronze sculpture by Lesley Dill of a perforated dress form bearing language from a Salvador Espriu poem, the exhibition offers a broad view of figuration and includes sculpture, drawing, and painting.

Highlights from the show include Robert Arneson's bronze bust Splatt (1983), a humorous self-portrait of the artist wiping mud from his eye and Glasgow artist Steven Campbell's Men Insulting Nature and the Notion of Travel (1986) a densely painted scene portraying a conflict between man and nature. Also on view is Peter Saul's 1968 painting Come and Get Me. Asserting a potent critique of racial stereotypes, the painting is rendered in Saul's typical day-glo colors and depicts a cigarette smoking African American man crowned with a halo and brandishing a knife. Similarly, Yoan Capote combines humor with political commentary in his collage Coito (2004), presenting two male figures copulating, each cut from Cuban and U.S. currency. And in Look-Out (2005) by Anthony Kulig, the artist plays with perspective affixing a pair of small-scale plaster figures to the wall in such a way to create a skewed bird's eye-view.

Other works in the exhibition take a more traditional approach to the figure, such as Joan Brown's Self-Portrait at 42, 1980 and Bread and Coffee by Alfred Leslie, a monumental portrait of an elderly woman gingerly holding a slice of bread. In a departure from his industrial landscape scenes, Andrew Lenaghan's larger than life size painting of a young girl captures both an attitudinal gesture and the gritty, often unnoticed, details of a city street. Similarly, James Valerio's meticulous pencil drawing of a young man, David, becomes a portrait of competing textures--a zipper, a cable knit sweater, stubble on a chin--all viewed against a darkened background.

The exhibition also includes work by James Barsness, Carol Cole, Don Colley, Diane Edison, Richard Shaw and Gabriella Trzebinski.


Exhibition Checklist

Main Gallery
(Clockwise from entrance)

Robert Arneson
Splatt, 1983
bronze with unique ceramic base
71 x 21 x 21 inches
RAs 130.01

Robert Arneson
Elvis II, 1978
conte, pastel on paper
41 5/8 x 29 7/8"
RAd 04

Joan Brown
Self-Portrait at Age 42, 1980
enamel on canvas
71 3/4 " x 60"
JBRp 19

Steven Campbell
Men Insulting Nature and the Notion of Travel, 1986
oil on canvas
83 x 99 inches
SCamp 01

Carol Cole
Tar Baby, 2004
mixed media
7 x 13 inches
CCs 1

Peter Saul
Come and Get Me, 1968
oil on canvas
63 1/2x42 inches
PSp 118

Richard Shaw
Figure on a Palette, 1980
glazed porcelain
39 x 13 x 18 inches
RSs 68

Andrew Lenaghan
Big Sarah, 2005
acrylic on canvas
77 1/2 x 58 inches
AnLp 395

Yoan Capote
Madness II, 2004
steel
70 1/2 x 40 x 23 inches
YCs 19

Collier Schorr
Esther's Fine Dream (Ashes to Ashes, We All Fall Down), 1991
cast paper, acrylic, pencil, and collage
L 18 x W 12 x D 10 inches
CoSs 1

James Barsness
Untitled (Red nude on street), 2004
acrylic, ballpoint pen
12 x 9 inches
JBARd 60

James Barsness
Untitled (with jack o'lantern), 2004
acrylic, ballpoint pen, inkjet archival print on paper
11 7/8 x 8 5/8 inches
JBARd 61

Anthony Kulig
Look-Out, 2005
plaster, acrylic
Two figures 17 x 4 1/2 x 3 inches each
AKuls 8

Don Colley
Weave 2003
7 x 6 1/2 inches
scratchboard, artist's frame
DCp 10

Don Colley
Reel, 2003
scratchboard, hand-made hardwood frame
6 x 6 inches
DCp  09

Side Gallery

Diane Edison
Self-Portrait Interior (striped robe), 1992
color pencil/black paper
30 x 22 inches
DEd 8

Adolph Gottlieb
The Watchers, c. 1941
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches
AGotp01

Lesley Dill
Of, 2005
unique bronze with oil paint
67 x 58 x 28 inches
LDs 207

Alfred Leslie
Bread and Coffee, 1983
oil on canvas
84 x 60 inches
ALp 02

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Study for American Synchromy #1, 1919
charcoal on paper (2-sided drawing)
25 x 18 1/2 inches
SMWd 3

Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Study for American Synchromy #2, 1919
charcoal on paper (2-sided drawing)
25 x 18 1/2 inches
SMWd 4

James Valerio
David, 2004
pencil on paper
30 1/2 x 25 inches
JVd 52