Primavera, 2024

From the venue:

River Songs, Michael Childress

 

Wolfgang Gallery is pleased to present River Songs, a solo exhibition by Michael Childress. This exhibition brings together three distinct bodies of work, presented in conjunction: the ongoing Equivalence Series (2020–present), watercolors from the River Songs series, and new landscape paintings from the Cyclorama series.

A pivotal moment in Childress’s practice occurred during the creation of Flow Temple from the Equivalence series, which features a serene river scene. This piece marked a turning point, inspiring Childress to venture out of the studio and into nature, painting en plein air at summer swimming spots, including nude gay beaches along rivers in Western Massachusetts, where he resides. Moved by the beauty, tranquility, and uninhibited enjoyment of the landscape by those around him, Childress developed a series of small landscape paintings, culminating in the River Songs series, comprised of 54 works. The series title draws inspiration from José Esteban Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia, particularly the chapter Just Like Heaven: Queer Utopian Art in the Aesthetic Dimension. In this chapter, Muñoz references Marcuse’s critique of the social emphasis on productive labor, using a queer interpretation of the myths of Narcissus and Orpheus. “Narcissus and Orpheus represent ‘images of joy and fulfillment; the voice which does not command but sings.’” In this way, Childress’s watercolors are created in a space of pleasure and leisure, rather than labor.

Following the completion of the River Songs series, Childress returned to his studio with a renewed perspective to begin the Cyclorama series. These abstracted landscapes employ a unique visual approach, using depth and perspective to create a sense of immersion. If viewed in a cylindrical format, the paintings would produce a panoramic effect, reminiscent of a traditional cyclorama. This body of work represents the continued evolution of Childress’s surreal, liminal landscapes, presented en masse.

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Celeste Morton

 

Ongoing exhibit

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Saj Issa, Poppy Paintings

 

Wolfgang Gallery is also pleased to announce that we will be featuring works by Saj Issa in our front gallery during the duration of Cultivate. SAJ ISSA is a Palestinian American artist born in Saint Louis and raised between the Midwest and West Bank, Palestine. She received her BFA from Webster University and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Issa was one of three artists selected for the 2024 Great Rivers Biennial, which will open at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in September and will include the artist’s “Poppy Paintings” which has been presented in Artforum along with a portfolio of her practice. She has held residencies at the Belger Crane Yard Studios in Kansas City, MO, and Craft Alliance in Saint Louis. Issa was a recipient of the 2022 NCECA Graduate Student Fellowship. She has been featured in interviews with Hyperallergic, Juxtapoz, Khama, New American Paintings, the New Yorker, and Office Magazine.

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