RACHEL UFFNER GALLERY AT SUNDAY ART FAIR 2016
STRAUSS BOURQUE-LAFRANCE
Rachel Uffner Gallery is delighted to be presenting a solo presentation of new work by Strauss Bourque-LaFrance at the SUNDAY art fair in London from October 6-9, 2016.
Strauss Bourque-LaFrance is a New York based artist whose work deals with painting-in-the-expanded-field, painting-as-collage, painting-as-performance, and painting-as-sculpture. His work utilizes materials found in domestic contexts such as wood, laminate, plexiglas, and fabrics. He often translates the small intimate gesture of his drawings onto a larger scale through these materials, yielding a unique set of signs and symbols. His idiosyncratic practice is about getting inside and exploring this space like a language of his own – somewhere between drawing, painting, and sculpture and between subject, image, and form.
For the new series debuting at SUNDAY, Bourque-LaFrance has created wood wall works that bring to life his drawings in yet another way. These works are made in parts, each shape is drawn, cut, sculpted, sanded, and then finished with a variety of painted and collaged surfaces. The works are hung in a grouping to create a larger image or composition that is somewhere between a body, landscape, or a sentence fragment. The imagery comes from several cultural influences, from Pop to 70's Italian cartoons, vintage signs, and graphic tabloids as well as from the art historical – AbEx, Post Minimalism, Surrealism, and Outsider Art. His references and intuition transform familiar tropes and images into new symbols and information.
Strauss Bourque-LaFrance, b. 1983, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Recent solo shows include Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, T293, Rome, KANSAS, New York; Courtney Blades, Chicago; Bodega, Philadelphia/New York. His work has been included in exhibitions at Ma Galerie, Paris; Galerie Derouillon, Paris; Galerie Tobias Naehring, Leipzig; The Kitchen, New York; White Flag Projects, St. Louis; ICA Philadelphia; SculptureCenter, New York; Contemporary Austin Jones Center, Texas; Abrons Art Center, New York; Exo Exo, Paris, FR; Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York; Vox Populi, Philadelphia; Clifford Gallery, Colgate University, New York; and Porch Projects, Washington D.C., among others. He received his BFA from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA; and his MFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA.
