PAUL DeMURO

Tapestry
January 7 – February 5, 2017
Opening Reception: January 8, 6-8 PM

Essex Flowers is pleased to present Tapestry a show of work by Paul DeMuro, comprising Veil of Tears 2014-2016, oil and collage on canvas, and Toxic Masculinity, screen-print 2017, and a series of mixed media drawings. Each of these works is an accumulation. For instance, Veil of Tears is comprised of clusters of triangles, rainbow glows, collapsing grids, and parallel zigzags that surround negative spaces traced from a cutout of an Edible Arrangement.

An Edible Arrangement is one of the most absurd commemorative gifts because it invites guests to consume it. In DeMuro’s painting, the absence of the memorial is consumed by dense, schizophrenic patterns; it’s as if the memorial to the memorial is being choked to death with colorful affection. Long after the event has passed, the atmosphere, thought fragments, conversations, songs, confetti and tinsel still hover around the painting and let us get lost in it. The painting is a coded transcription, or a transcribed code, of all that was thought and seen and heard during its composition, so that it is a record of time.

DeMuro’s process does something that is fundamental to art, which is to take established meanings, metaphors, and ideas and then re-invent them. Psychics hold objects to determine their aura and their history. How do you hold onto what you’ve learned in the past two years?

Paul DeMuro born 1981, Philadelphia, PA :
DeMuro has had solo exhibitions at Gallerie Zurcher in New York City and Paris. His work has been show at Es Ef Eff, Regina Rex, Store Front Ten Eyck, The Hole, Bannerette, Topless, 247365 and Ortega y Gasset Projects in New York City. In 2015 he received a NYFA painting fellowship and in 2012 the Purchase Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Public collections include the Art Museum of South Texas at Corpus Cristi and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art.