In his latest show at Marianne Boesky Gallery, Barnaby Furnas morphs Grant Woods’ iconic American Gothic (now on view at the Whitney) into an eerie portrait of pitchfork-clutching quadruplet sisters defined by their flatness and conformity. Other paintings feature charging bison and Mt Rushmore, summoning iconic ‘American’ imagery to question what that means now. Even Furnas’ new experiments in painting technique – he has worked with the research group ARTMATR to digitally replicate his labor-intensive paint application techniques – align with the sense that these robotic characters lack a human element. (On view in Chelsea through April 14th).
Barnaby Furnas, The Quartet, dispersed pigments, acrylic, colored pencil, pencil on linen, 51 x 38 ½ inches, 2018.
Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education.
For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine.
Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)
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