Victor Pesce
Courtesy of Elizabeth Harris Gallery
August 2 - September 13, 2015
Untitled, 2009-2010, Oil on canvas, 30 x 24"
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Artist
and critic Mario Naves has written of Victor Pesce: "He paints
pictures of simple things, but the pictures he paints are not so
simple." The subjects of Pesce's still-life paintings are singular
object--bottles, vases, boxes, plates. They are set against mottled
expanses of color that can represent horizon and surface. His objects
occupy space--they sit, they have gravitas, they ask us to stop and
look. The paintings are small, but the scale is both intimate and vast.
Pesce creates an atmospheric richness that belies the simple
geometries of his objects. His objects are subjects, and they walk
their own quiet line of abstraction and representation.
Pesce was born to Italian immigrant parents in Flushing, Queens, in 1938. He passed away in 2010. He took his first art classes while waiting for an Army posting in Europe. When he returned to the U.S., he joined the family business as a licensed plumber, but soon afterward enrolled at NYU to pursue an art-education degree. A course with abstract expressionist Milton Resnick strongly influenced his early work. Paintings for this exhibit were chosen in consultation with the Elizabeth Harris Gallery |
