David Deutsch Transfer Paintings
April 30 - June 12, 2016
installation images selected works thumbnails
Press Release
David Deutsch's first solo exhibition at Kerry Schuss consists of a suite of ten paintings that the artist made specifically for this space. The human-scaled 68 x 70 inch canvases fill the small gallery space, creating a mural-like experience where the viewer is surrounded by Deutsch's expressionist webs of freewheeling, bold brushwork. Each picture depicts a turbulent urban landscape with buildings and cars inhabited by one or two relatively small human figures going about the business of life.
The title "Transfer Paintings" refers to the unusual process of how these pictures are made. Deutsch paints quickly with acrylic on sheets of thin plastic retaining the streaks of the brushwork and then he lays the plastic on prepared canvases. The plastic is then pulled away transferring the pigment to the canvas, a process akin to monotypes. This exhibition is the culmination of eight years of exploring the possibilities of this technique.
The varied earth-toned palette unifies the work in this series while giving tangibility to the scene and engages winningly with the gallery's dark brown old wooden floor. The white background of each painting fades into the white walls of the gallery allowing the gestures to float from one painting to the next. The individual canvases may be seen as paragraphs in a longer story or as movements in a symphonic whole.
David Deutsch, born in 1943 in Los Angeles and moved to New York 1970, has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the US and Europe. His most recent was in 2013 at Feature Inc.