The paintings presented here were made after I read Cynthia Carr’s biography, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz. As a gay man who has grown up teetering between insecurity and self-acceptance, I have craved connection to the past. The plight of David and his contemporaries was paramount in my mind while making this body of work: Is there a way to make abstract paintings that dig deep into the gay experience? The bodily stains, nervous scribbles, and bizarre color combinations are meant to codify those universal feelings of shame, anxiety, inadequacy, and profound loss.
Artist Statement
I am most interested in the moments in which even the most expertly crafted paintings begin to fall apart. You see it in the puckered corners of Warhol’s massive diamond dust paintings; in the black stains of Al Held’s color fields, and in the tremulous lines of Frank Stella’s early shaped works. For me, these moments are revelations—real imprints of quiet humanity, tiny failures that make even the most monumental and heroic paintings seem flimsy, vulnerable, even sad.
My work takes these notions of weakness as an abstract painter and connects them to my own personal feelings of inadequacy and self-consciousness as a gay man. To that end, I recycle standard tropes of abstraction. Hard edged geometry, super-saturated color gradients, bold stripes, and thick bands of impastoed paint are isolated onto studio-beaten canvas, and embedded with pieces of contemporary culture like fragments of typography, nonsensical doodles, and titles culled from hip-hop lyrics. These mash-ups of intentionally flawed modes of studio production, cool minimalism, and strands of popular culture are meant to challenge the status of contemporary painting as much as embrace it.
The finished paintings are at once pieces of cultural detritus as well as documents of my own uneasiness: images that conflate definitions of success and failure, chance and contrivance, aloofness and emotional unraveling.
Andrew Brischler
b. 1987, Long Island, NY
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
EDUCATION
2012 MFA Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
2009 BFA Painting and Drawing, Magna Cum Laude; SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY
SOLO & TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2013
Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL (forthcoming November 2013)
NADA New York, Andrew Brischler & David Haxton, Gavlak Gallery Booth, New York, NY
2012
Goodbye to All That, Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL
39 Great Jones, New York, NY
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2014
Outside the Lines, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX (forthcoming January 2014)
2013
This is the Story of America, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy (forthcoming November 2013)
Acid Summer, Curated by Matthew Craven, DCKT Contemporary, New York, NY
All Fucking Summer, Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL
Whitney Museum Art Party Benefit Auction, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
MiArt2013, Gavlak Gallery Booth, Milan, Italy
The Armory Show, Focus: USA, Gavlak Gallery Booth #908, New York, NY (catalogue)
Art Rotterdam, Office Baroque Gallery, Rotterdam, Netherlands
My Echo, My Shadow, Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL
39 Great Jones, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich (catalogue)
2012
News From Chicago and New York City, Curated by Henning Strassburger, Fiebach Minninger, Cologne, Germany
Time, After Time, Curated by ARTNESIA, Ronchini Gallery, London, UK (catalogue)
What’s the Point, Jen Bekman Gallery, New York, NY
The Virgins Show, Curated by Marilyn Minter, Family Business, New York, NY
Just the Tip, SVA MFA Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition, Organized in Collaboration with Mike Egan, Visual Arts Gallery, New York, NY
2011
Sentimental Education, Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL
Things Fall Apart, Curated by Asya Geisberg, Visual Arts Gallery, New York, NY
Abstract Means, Curated by Richard Brooks, Visual Arts Gallery, New York, NY
Celebrating 15 Years: Young Artists at Heckscher, Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY
College Art Association New York MFA Exhibition, Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, New York, NY
Vuu Collective W/S 2011 Show, K&K Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2010
Emerge to be Seen, Westside Gallery, New York, NY
Marks That Matter, Juried by Gillian Jagger, Muroff Kotler Visual Arts Gallery, SUNY Ulster, Stone Ridge, NY
The New, Art (That Matters), Oyster Bay, NY
New York Art & Culture Exhibition Series, Albany International Airport, Albany, NY
2009
No Girls Allowed: BFA Thesis Exhibition, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY
SPECIAL PROJECTS
2013
Shinola x Andrew Brischler, Limited Edition Product & Installation, Tribeca Flagship Store, New York, NY (forthcoming November 2013)
Converse Footwear for Publicolor, organized by Grey Area
COLLECTIONS
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
AWARDS AND HONORS
2012 School of Visual Arts MFA Fine Arts Award
2011 School of Visual Arts MFA Fine Arts Award
2010 5th Annual Artist VIP List, Long Island Pulse Magazine
2010 Student Representative, New York Art & Culture Exhibition Series, Albany, NY
2009 Best in Show, Fall 2008 Best of SUNY Art Exhibition Series, Albany, NY
2008 Alex Minewski Memorial Fine Art Scholarship
2007 Best in Show, Spring 2007 SUNY New Paltz Foundation Department Art Exhibition
2006 Best in Show, Fall 2006 SUNY New Paltz Foundation Department Art Exhibition
2005 Curran & Connors Art & Design Scholarship
2005 Smithtown High School Art & Literary Magazine Scholarship
2005 Regional Gold Key Winner, Scholastic Art and Writing Awards
2005 Winner, Award of Distinction, “Long Island’s Best: Young Artists at Heckscher”
2004 Winner, Award of Excellence, “Long Island’s Best: Young Aritsts at Heckscher”
PUBLICATIONS
Luxe Interiors & Design, Fall 2012, Volume 10, Issue 4, pp 108-109.
New American Paintings #98: Northeast Edition, March 2012
VOLUME: A Printed Publication by the VUU Collective, Issue No. 1, Fall/Winter 2011
Long Island Pulse , August 2010, 5th Annual Artist VIP List
PRESS
Dust Magazine, Online Blog, July 27, 2013
Huffington Post, Andrew Brischler & David Kramer Studio Visits, May 10, 2013
ART.SY, “Art.sy Editorial: Five Minutes with Andrew Brischler,” March 8 2013
A/ART: Andrew Brischler, March 2013
BOOOOOOOM! blog, November 7 2012
TIME, After TIME at Ronchini Gallery, The Upcoming UK, September 7 2012
Watchlist Artist, Andrew Brischler @ Gavlak Gallery, ArtSlant Miami, July 24 2012
Jan Sjostrom, Palm Beach Daily News, July 19 2012
ArtObserved, “AO On Site,” Inaugural Opening of Family Business, February 20 2012
Artinfo, “Marilyn Minter on Her Show for Maurizio Cattelan’s New Gallery”, February 15 2012
Huffington Post, December 6 2011
Powerslice, “Andrew Brischler in Conversation,” May 24, 2011
VUU Collective: A New Generation of Artists, Winter/Spring 2010
“Emerge to be Seen”, School of Visual Arts, December 2010″
5th Annual Artist VIP List,” Long Island Pulse Magazine, August 2010
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2012-Present, Painter, Marilyn Minter Studio, New York, NY
2009,Teaching Assistant, Drawing Projects, SUNY New Paltz. New Paltz, NY
2009, Teaching Assistant, Advanced Drawing, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY
2008, Teaching Assistant, Integrated Design II: Forces, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY