Evan Levine

Evan Levine
Paintings: 2006-2008

April 25 – May 12, 2009
Opening April 25, 6 – 8pm

Gallery Hours: Tue – Sat, 11am – 6pm

Art : Raw Gallery is pleased to present Evan Levine, in his first solo exhibition in New York. The exhibition includes a selection of exuberantly colored and rhythmically constructed paintings spanning from a period of nearly three years between early 2006 and late 2008.

Evan Levine’s paintings explore an idiosyncratic language of abstraction in which a serious formal investigation of color, light, composition and perception is undercut by a certain playfulness and humor. The forms function as vibrant characters with individualized personalities which reflect a primitive impulse towards hand-drawn motifs as well as a penchant for crisp geometry and design. In Termite Ad (2007), keyboards, text boxes, thought bubbles and microchip-like motifs are densely laid against flat squares of color, while presenting a data overload the patterning also looks like whimsical ornaments. Parallels can be made to sources as disparate as northwest Indian blankets or brightly colored computer screen images.

Recently the artist has begun to experiment with hand drawn letters to explore the potential of using words and sentences as a catalyst for meaning and expression. In You Could Say (2008), fragments of multifaceted vernacular languages are linked up through arrows to form a sentence. The painting hangs as a dot-to-dot drawing, where the viewer is asked to interact with the work through visual and word associations.

Evan Levine was born in New Haven, CT in 1984 and currently lives and works in New York. He holds a BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute and an MFA in Painting from Yale University. His work has been exhibited at ArtSpace New Haven, CT and Adam Baumgold Gallery, NY. Levine’s work is included in the public collections of the Michigan University Steven M. Ross School of Business Art Collection.

For more information please contact Art : Raw Gallery, or visit www.artrawgallery.com