Rodney Graham

For the latest exhibition in East Hampton, Lisson Gallery is pleased to present new paintings by Rodney Graham. Graham pulls at the threads of cultural and intellectual history through multiple mediums including photography, film, music, performance and painting. For this exhibition, the artist’s first solo presentation in East Hampton, the new paintings draw on the vocabulary of 20th century art, splicing together different styles, from Braque to Picasso, to Rodchenko and Fontana.

Rodney Graham’s paintings are the result of continuing evolution. After revisiting early studies, Graham combined and transformed different elements and shapes from his previous painting series (such as the Inverted Drip Paintings, Psychomania Variations, and Possible Abstractions) to create new compositions. Using Modernism as his inspiration, Graham ventures to mimic the abstract paintings of the post-World War II era. The result, represented in four new paintings in East Hampton, is a layering of textures and the creation of a new style with various new modernist compositions.

Accompanying the new works is a 2007 painting from Rodney Graham’s Wet on Wet series. Reflecting on the practice of painting itself, this early series features heavy impasto abstractions that rediscover classical modernist tropes without obvious irony. Here, Graham inserts painting into the context of a post-medium practice: the works are an extension of his artistic persona undertaking the act of painting and are inconceivable as separate from it.