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→ 31 Dec 12 at 12 pm christopherschreck:

STUDIO VISIT: CONOR BACKMAN

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Conor Backman at his studio in Bushwick. Conor moved into town this past September from Richmond, Virginia, where he completed a painting/sculpture double-major at VCU and, from 2009-2012, co-ran Reference Gallery. Conor’s best-known work combines trompe-l’oeil visual strategies with everyday source materials, striking an intriguing balance between his two chosen fields and reflecting an ongoing interest in precise re-creation as a means of purposeful reinterpretation.

In one typical work, what look at first like crumpled pieces of paper overflowing out of a trashcan are actually sheets of metal, meticulously shaped and painted by hand. In another, thin plates of steel are precisely scored to replicate books with cut-up pages. Colorful abstract paintings are in fact exacting re-creations of markings left on palettes used for previous paintings and sculptures. A history textbook, folded open to Velazquez’s Las Meninas (itself an exercise in layered perceptions and feedback loops), is rendered in steel and painstakingly copied with oils.

At a time in which so much of our visual culture is driven by the capacity of an altered or constructed image to appear “real,” the illusionism of trompe-l’œil lends itself quite nicely to current conversations. But while these works do occasionally provide an “a-ha!” moment of realization, Conor’s interest isn’t in simply (or even completely) achieving illusions, but rather in negotiating the spaces between two given states: between painting and sculpture, between copy and original, between realistic and inauthentic.

Last month, Berlin-based artist/writer (and former Reference co-director) James Shaeffer wrote an insightful essay on Conor’s work in which he spoke of his friend’s propensity for “exposing the sublime in the mundane.” While I agree with James’ assessment in a certain sense, my own feeling is that Conor’s best work tends to be less about elevating commonplace items to the status of art than about tracing the (de-) evolution of various art historical modes from the avant-garde to the everyday. In so many of these works, we see Conor looking to his surroundings as a means of engaging with traditions long removed from contemporary discourse. Over time, for instance, scuffs and stains on a linoleum tile floor can come to resemble an Ab-Ex canvas. The colored specks on a piece of foam carpet padding can bring to mind the Pointillist techniques of Georges Seurat. The restrained aesthetics of minimalism seem to endure in retail furniture design. Stripped of text, beer containers evoke the romantic landscapes of the Hudson River School while cereal boxes echo both tie-dye psychedelia and Color Field painting.

Ultimately, I think one finds in these paintings not an attempt to bridge “low-“ and “high-culture” aesthetics (a distinction which, at least to me, feels pretty outdated and definitely unproductive), but rather an eagerness to engage with a series of styles and techniques which may have long since fallen out of theoretical fashion, but have never truly fallen out of sight.

View more of Conor’s work HERE and HERE. Be sure also to check out his new work IRL as part of an upcoming group show (curated by James Shaeffer) opening in February at Stadium (NYC), as well as in a solo show at Nudashank (Baltimore) in March.

(via jesuisperdu)

christopherschreck:

STUDIO VISIT: CONOR BACKMAN
I recently had the pleasure of visiting Conor Backman at his studio in Bushwick. Conor moved into town this past September from Richmond, Virginia, where he completed a painting/sculpture double-major at VCU and, from 2009-2012, co-ran Reference Gallery. Conor’s best-known work combines trompe-l’oeil visual strategies with everyday source materials, striking an intriguing balance between his two chosen fields and reflecting an ongoing interest in precise re-creation as a means of purposeful reinterpretation.
In one typical work, what look at first like crumpled pieces of paper overflowing out of a trashcan are actually sheets of metal, meticulously shaped and painted by hand. In another, thin plates of steel are precisely scored to replicate books with cut-up pages. Colorful abstract paintings are in fact exacting re-creations of markings left on palettes used for previous paintings and sculptures. A history textbook, folded open to Velazquez’s Las Meninas (itself an exercise in layered perceptions and feedback loops), is rendered in steel and painstakingly copied with oils.

At a time in which so much of our visual culture is driven by the capacity of an altered or constructed image to appear “real,” the illusionism of trompe-l’œil lends itself quite nicely to current conversations. But while these works do occasionally provide an “a-ha!” moment of realization, Conor’s interest isn’t in simply (or even completely) achieving illusions, but rather in negotiating the spaces between two given states: between painting and sculpture, between copy and original, between realistic and inauthentic.
Last month, Berlin-based artist/writer (and former Reference co-director) James Shaeffer wrote an insightful essay on Conor’s work in which he spoke of his friend’s propensity for “exposing the sublime in the mundane.” While I agree with James’ assessment in a certain sense, my own feeling is that Conor’s best work tends to be less about elevating commonplace items to the status of art than about tracing the (de-) evolution of various art historical modes from the avant-garde to the everyday. In so many of these works, we see Conor looking to his surroundings as a means of engaging with traditions long removed from contemporary discourse. Over time, for instance, scuffs and stains on a linoleum tile floor can come to resemble an Ab-Ex canvas. The colored specks on a piece of foam carpet padding can bring to mind the Pointillist techniques of Georges Seurat. The restrained aesthetics of minimalism seem to endure in retail furniture design. Stripped of text, beer containers evoke the romantic landscapes of the Hudson River School while cereal boxes echo both tie-dye psychedelia and Color Field painting.

Ultimately, I think one finds in these paintings not an attempt to bridge “low-“ and “high-culture” aesthetics (a distinction which, at least to me, feels pretty outdated and definitely unproductive), but rather an eagerness to engage with a series of styles and techniques which may have long since fallen out of theoretical fashion, but have never truly fallen out of sight.

View more of Conor’s work HERE and HERE. Be sure also to check out his new work IRL as part of an upcoming group show (curated by James Shaeffer) opening in February at Stadium (NYC), as well as in a solo show at Nudashank (Baltimore) in March.