On view:
April 22 – June 4, 2011
Opening reception for the artist:
Friday, April 22, 7-9pm
Exhibition hours:
Wednesday, Thursday & Saturday 1-6pm.
Civilian Art Projects is pleased to announce Thrust, new paintings by Trevor Young in his second solo exhibition with the gallery. Thrust is an installation of six paintings inspired by airports, a continuation of Young's research into the French anthropologist Marc Augé-coined term "non-places." Non-places are spaces that we use or pass through on the way to other places, but to which no one really belongs. They are not often places of real comfort and exchange.
Young is drawn to such places as glowing gas stations; complex highway overpasses; lonely cash machines; and airports, including the runway and the plane itself. These new large-scale paintings consider the way humans interconnect and assign meaning. Young sees these non-places as providing comfort and beauty through their familiarity and transience, commenting on our continual evolution and movement to -- and away from -- intimate connection and communication. No longer is the non-place something to pass through, or something lonely; it is something to behold.
The subject matter is enthralling to the artist, considered into paintings depicting strength, vigor, and an almost spiritual worship of the built world. But it is the nature of his medium that brings him to paint non-places. According to Young, "Painting is an awkward medium that shows the human hand and imagination. It is the challenge of painting that brings me to paint these concrete roads and shiny surfaces. I am interested in making these lonely places fill with atmosphere. To that end, I rework an area over and over to create the space and the surface. And then I go back into the painting, many times, to develop the mystery and wonder."
Young's growing success as a painter, including his sold-out booth at last year's Scope Miami during the venerable Art Basel Miami Beach fair, is indicative of an astute, driven intellect that resonates with others. Young researches, photographs, and then turns his imagery and ideas into oil and alkyd paintings on canvas. His work is current; a part of the vernacular; yet harkens to an older time of mixed pigment and laborious hours in the studio. According to the artist, he is using one of the oldest mediums to paint the future, or at least a careful consideration of the present. And by doing so, he is perhaps elevating these familiar yet transitory and diminishing landscapes into something permanent and able to withstand the ravages of time.
Born in 1976, Trevor lives and works in Washington, DC. He graduated in 2006 with a BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. Recent exhibitions include: Lyric, curated by Glenn Barr for the 323 East Gallery in Detroit; Emissions, a solo exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art, FL; By Request, curated by Jeffry Cudlin at Flashpoint, Washington DC; Natural Beauty at Mondo Bizzaro, Rome, Italy; Non-places at Flashpoint, Washington, DC; Homogenizer at M Gallery; Summer Salon at Sloan Fine Art, New York, NY; and Luster at Lee Jensen Brake Shop, Washington, DC. He is the recipient of the Richard C. Von Hess Travel Grant from the Richard C. Von Hess Foundation. His work is in several public and private collections including that of the Washington, DC Convention Center. Young is currently working on a monograph written and produced by Lázaro Lima, Associate Professor at Bryn Mawr College.
April 22 – June 4, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, April 22, 7-9pm
Civilian Art Projects is pleased to announce Thrust, new paintings by Trevor Young, his second solo exhibition with the gallery. Thrust is an installation of six paintings by Young inspired by airports. Continuing his research of the French anthropologist Marc Augé-coined term "non-place," Young is drawn to places such as glowing gas stations; complex highway overpasses; lonely cash machines; and airports, including the runway and the plane itself.
