December 9th – January 22nd, 2004
Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present Lawrence Seward's Inside Out, the
artist's fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. Inside Out continues
his investigation of perceptions of nature, while building on his humorous
approach to the human condition.
For 2001's Off Island, Seward used snapshots of tropical environments in his
work to explore ideals of nature, obscuring and abstracting various elements
of the works to bring them new meaning. For Inside Out, Seward has created
seven oil paintings on canvas, each one depicting a different semi-obstructed
view of the Pacific Ocean. Though the works appear to be observed landscapes,
they are actually psychologically constructed locales that the artist has
translated into paintings.
In these works, the ocean appears as if the viewer is seeing it from underneath
a strange seaside highway, the picturesque view cropped by the cement structures
that support it. The relationship between interior and exterior, light and
dark, is central to these works. The viewer shares this slightly darkened
zone with an assortment of odd objects and structures: a spare light bulb
hangs from its cord, or an old plank of wood balances across a rift between
the cement and the rocky shore.
In 1998, Seward created a series of sculptures of an 'everyman' figure getting
stuck in a variety of uncomfortable, often surreally hazardous situations.
For Inside Out, as an extension of his previous sculptural investigations
into the trials and tribulations of the human body, the artist has created
seven rattan sculptures, each one resembling a different type of elderly walker,
which has been altered or accessorized.
The exhibition will be on view from
December 9th to January 22nd, 2004. A reception will be held for the
artist in the gallery on December 9th from 6 - 8 PM at 516 West 20th Street,
New York City. For information call 212-741-8849.
Off Island
May 17-June 16, 2001
"Hawaii five-0"
by Aric Chen, Dutch May/June 2001
"A
lot of my pieces are about the trials and tribulations of this one pathetic
character," says Lawrence Seward, describing the bungling, lanky klutz
who keeps popping up in his work. Unfortunately, the figure -invariably donning
a white T-shirt, blue jeans and Pumas -happens to refer to the artist himself.
For Seward and his subject, life appears to be a never-ending series of incomprehensible
discoveries, astonishing pitfalls and overrated banality. "People always
talk about the sublime beauty of nature," he says. "But sometimes
I sit there and think, a sunset is just another sunset." A surfer dude
originally from Hawaii, Seward has a tendency to speak as if he's scratching
his head. But sorting through this perpetual state of confusion, his largely
autobiographical sculptures nonetheless capture disorientation with humor,
cleverness and clarity. Although he's undeniably tragic, you can't help but
find the white T-shirt guy endearing. He's prone to accidentally dismembering
himself and falling flat on his face, and he has appeared with his head literally
on backwards. In 1998 Seward unveiled The Gates of Hell, a tongue-in-cheek
take on the doors Rodin designed for Paris's …cole des Arts DÈcoratifs
in 1880. On two blacks panels, a crowded field of the little guys squirm and
writhe, wrestling helplessly in comic horror with the inevitability of their
eternal damnation. For his upcoming show at New York's Andrew Kreps Gallery,
the Manhattan-based artist has returned to his native Hawaii. On a series
of sculpted islands, on which volcanic mountains and dramatic waterfalls are
rendered in travel poster style, Seward's alter ego slips and trips. In fact,
Seward makes you think about growing up in
Hawaii, where attempts at a normal upbringing are tainted by grass skirts,
ukuleles and the camera-wielding suburbanites who can't get enough of them.
One of the signposts placed on his island sums it up: "You were right,
I regret this."
The Exhibition will be on view, from May 17 - June 16, 2001. A reception will be held for the artist in the gallery May 17th, from 6-8pm at 516 West 20th St., New York. For information call 212-741-8849.
Lawrence Seward
November 19-December 23, 1998
The Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present the new work of Lawrence Seward. For this show Seward focuses on his "everyman" character. The figures are sculpted out of plaster, painted a uniform blue and white, and then arranged in various abstract and narrative scenarios; bringing the underlying current of tragedy and perversion out of the mundane nature of sameness.
The principal work in the show is a reference to the central panels of Rodin's "Gates of Hell". Seward creates a set of oversized doors which act as the frame for the passage into hell. Like in Rodinís masterpiece the figures are crowded into the gate desperately trying to fight off their inevitable destiny. Seward reinterprets this mythological tale with a cartoon lightness that points not only to the silliness of our belief systems but to the odd truth that emerges from exaggerated metaphors.
The other works in the show consist of the same character in various freestanding forms. They wrestle with each other, pull their own arms off, co-mingle with an unnamed plastic goo or just simply make their way through as deformed or dismembered versions of the model. Seward has taken a standard and made it absurd, as though it were a perfect plan that took a wrong turn somewhere and is spiraling, in a tragicomic fashion, out of control.
The
exhibition will be on view from November 19 thru December 23, 1998. A reception
will be held for the artist in the gallery on November 19th from 6-8 PM at
529 West 20th St., New York. For information call 212-741-8849.
