HUNTER SHAW FINE ART
presents:
Adam de Boer : Night Swimming
Opening reception Thursday, December 8, 6-9 pm.
On view December 9 - December 12, 12:00 - 6:00 pm.
857 S. San Pedro St. Unit #310 *
Night Swimming No. 2 | 2016 | wax-resist acylic dye, oil paint, silver leaf on linen | 45 x 45 inches
Hunter Shaw Fine Art is pleased to announce its inaugural pop-up exhibition, Adam de Boer’s Night Swimming, the artist’s first solo presentation in Los Angeles. On view are eight new canvases showcasing the painter’s multi-layered approach to image-making. Harmoniously blending modes of abstraction, representation, landscape and figure, Night Swimming is imbued with a musical, narrative sensibility, propelling an aesthetic investigation into the complex dynamics of romantic love.
Across the series, we see moments from a love affair - the first encounter, the seduction, inevitable conflict - each rendered in a tropical, dreamlike palette. In much the same way that the dynamic of romance consists of the integration of disparate, often conflicting elements, each composition in Night Swimming arrives at a congruous image through the layering of various materials, processes and conceptual themes. De Boer begins each painting as a batik, a traditional wax-resist dyeing process the artist studied while traveling in Java, investigating his own Eurasian heritage. Once the wax and dye are boiled out of the surface, the resulting field of geometric abstraction serves as the ground for multiple layers of oil paint and details of silver-leaf. Occasionally the canvases are ornamented with intricate hand-carved teak wood embellishments, an art form also endemic to Indonesia.
The visual and material influence of Javanese craft and culture are central to the artist’s work and spring forth from his hybrid identity as a Dutch-Indonesian-American. The Javanese craft traditions de Boer draws upon are transformed beyond their traditional boundaries as they combine with western imagery and oil painting styles, ultimately crystallizing into an investigation of postcolonial identity. The artist states, “With images informed by a Western childhood and education, I misappropriate and mutate craft traditions outside their prescribed abstract designs into hybrid forms. Successful work is predicated on the capacity of the batik and carvings to be viewed from different, and oftentimes conflicting, vantages. These conflicts do not call for resolution but for reconciliation and adaption.”
In 2016 Adam was awarded a Fulbright research fellowship to Indonesia, where he will continue his engagement with the region’s indigenous crafts. Other grants include those from Arts For India, The Cultural Development Corporation, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and The Santa Barbara Arts Fund.
Adam de Boer received his MFA from the Chelsea College of Art, London, and his BA in Painting from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Recent exhibitions include Art|Jog|8, Yogyakarta (2015); Indonesian Contemporary Art Network, Yogyakarta (2014); Cookhouse Gallery, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (2014); University of California, Santa Barbara (2014); Escuela Taller, Bogotá (2013); Riflemaker, London (2016, 2013, 2011); Flashpoint Gallery, Washington, DC (2010).
* Exhibition space generously provided by WAYSIDE.LA