Couturier Gallery is pleased to present DAVID GILHOOLY On Paper, featuring twentyfour works drawings and monoprints on paper. Gilhooly, more known for multifaceted works in ceramic, also produced drawings and monoprints that are fanciful in their use of animal imagery including frogs, cats, dogs, and dinosaurs. The works on view were produced in the late 1980’s. Gilhooly’s more experimental monoprints and drawings highlight the likeness of animals as surrogates or portraits of pets from heroic twentieth century artists, such as Jackson Pollock, Clifford Still and Sam Francis. Employing a number of methods in rolling, or suspending inks in water, many of the images utilize radiant, even psychedelic color palettes, reminiscent of the various colors found in Gilhooly’s well-known ceramic work of caricaturelike amphibians and food products, anthropomorphized as historic figures and royalty. The animals in this exhibition take on certain chromatic and material characteristics that connect directly to their sources, or their ‘masters.’ Regardless of the submissive role the critters have with their given master, the resulting images and their apparent likeness refuse any form of stillness.
Image: Jackson Pollock’s Dog, 1987 My Dog Spot Loves Big Macs, 1988 Marbleized Cat With Color,
David Gilhooly (1943-2013) was born in Auburn, California, near Sacramento, and graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a BA in 1965, and an MA in 1967. While studying and producing work, Gilhooly, worked alongside of Robert Arneson at the TB-9 ceramics studio in Davis and, along with the likes of Roy De Forest, Clayton Bailey, Viola Frey, helped establish the Bay Area Funk Art movement. Funk Art, which had a significant impact on Northern California art production, was a response to the dominance of American Abstract Expressionism and its exploration of spirituality and the sublime. Funk, in contrast, resuscitated and embraced figurative elements and popular imagery, albeit with an acrimonious sensibility, whimsicality, and irreverence toward high modernism and high culture throughout the ages.
The work of David Gilhooly has been exhibited internationally and throughout the United States, and has work in the collections at: the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Arizona State University Art Collection, the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), the Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver, B.C.), the Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco, and the Oakland Museum of Art.
On view: March 11 – April 15, 2017
What: Opening reception
Where: Couturier Gallery, 166 N. La Brea Ave, LA, 90036
When: March 11, 2017, 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Website: http://www.couturiergallery.com
