ANDRÉ GREGORY: STILL BEAUTY IN THE ASHES

Monica King Contemporary, 32 Lispenard Street, New York, NY

October 10 - November 7, 2020

André Gregory: Still Beauty in the Ashes features recent works on paper and paintings by the NYC-based artist, who is also a legendary theatre director, filmmaker, writer, and actor.  Gregory, along with Wallace Shawn, wrote and starred in the universally acclaimed 1981 movie, My Dinner with Andre.

Gregory began painting 16 years ago after his wife, the filmmaker Cindy Kleine, suggested that he take an art class during a particularly stressful period in his life.  This journey quickly became a passion, which the artist recently told the NY Times “taught him a new way of seeing.” Through the depiction of primarily domestic objects, such as potted cacti on a windowsill against the backdrop of a cityscape and floral arrangements backdropped by patterned wallpaper, Gregory’s work at first conveys a sense of tranquility that is interrupted by somber undercurrents. The forms in Gregory’s dreamlike compositions come to life through his intuitive artistic gestures. Gregory approaches each work with a desire to experience reality as though it was for the first time. This new way of seeing is wrought through his impressionistic depictions of light and color with instinctive flickers of paint and broad panes of color that play with perceptions of time and space.

In a 2020 New York Times article on Gregory’s work and this exhibition, Kate Guadagnino describes his work as “a way of providing a balm, to artist and viewer alike, in a calamitous era” to which  Gregory mused that “we live in almost Old Testament times, with plagues and insane kings. It’s crucial that we look at those things critically but also try to feel hope and joy. The grief isn’t the whole story.”

Image: André Gregory, Things that Go Bump in the Night, 2018, acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 inches (76.2 x 55.8 cm)

Installation photography by Monica King