Throughout his career, Currin has searched for the point at which the beautiful and the ugly are held in perfect balance. Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by John Currin, made between 19. Often rife with art historical references and suggestions, Currin’s paintings frequently conflate opposing sensibilities-vaulted taste with vulgarity, sentimentality with irony, conventional beauty with banality.Ĭurrin lives and works in New York. There’s a kind of a distortion that happens with adoration. Often returning to his early styles and themes, Currin, however, has been critically regarded for his contemporary renditions of old master poses and formats, apparent in his works of the late 1990s. Paintings by John M Armleder, Jean-Baptiste Bernadet, Joe Bradley, Bernard Buffet, Brian Calvin, John Currin, Daan van Golden, Charline von Heyl, David. Later Currin transitioned to depicting aging socialites and mismatched couples in moments of superficial, domestic levity. In his depictions of the female nude, John Currin mines a number of distinct pictorial styles from art history his figures have exhibited the frilly ruffles and peachy skin tones of French Rococo paintings, as well as the distended anatomies and distorted proportions of Northern Renaissance and early Mannerist.

The most famous works in this series are Bea Arthur Naked, 1991, and Nadine Gordimer, 1992, both stark portrayals mixing conventional portraiture with caricature. In the 1990s, Currin was among a wave of artists, including Cecily Brown, Jenny Saville, John Sonsini, and others, with a renewed interest in portraiture.Ĭurrin’s early works stylized high school yearbook photographs, showing young and old women alike in awkward poses against nondescript backgrounds of leaden, matte colors. Currin’s work draws upon a broad range of cultural influences that include Renaissance oil paintings, 1950s women’s magazine advertisements, and contemporary politics. His figurespredominantly female and often. Sophisticated in technique and perverse in subject matter, Currin’s portraits conflate high and low culture in a teasing blend of satire and homage. This is his first solo exhibition at the gallery in New York since 2010. He is most recognised for his technically proficient satirical figurative paintings. Gagosian presents Memorial, an exhibition of new paintings by John Currin. He attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and received his MFA from Yale University. John Currin (born 1962) is an American painter based in New York City. 1962, Colorado) is an American painter best known for his satirical figurative paintings, revealing distortions of the human figure and critiques of societal ideals of beauty.

John currin portraits