FOR MAY 2 GARY RUDDELL’S DEBUT NYC SOLO OPENS MAY 15 AT GALLERY HENOCH

set 4/21 AVV/CD #735920

NEW YORK CITY — Gary Ruddell’s first solo exhibition here will be at Gallery Henoch May 15–June 7. A reception for the artist will be Thursday, May 15, from 6 to 8 pm.

Ruddell’s paintings showcase a love affair with the act of painting and a profound commitment to the making of surfaces. His tactile canvases are simultaneously ethereal, luscious and filled with nuance. Throughout, the viewer is reminded of the disquieting nostalgia and illogic manifested in the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio De Chirico.

Themes of fragmentation, isolation, adolescent sexual ennui and a loss of innocence are recurrent in these paintings. The captured moments of Ruddell’s paintings convey the frank and deeply pervasive emotional and psychological tension that inhabits youthful awkwardness, innocence and sexual curiosity. The worlds of the momentary and the eternal collide in these paintings, and yet they maintain a beautiful and poetic silence.

Depictions of feats of balance, levitation and dematerialization serve to create an aura of eternal mystery and melancholy that leads viewers of the work into the realm of visual poetry.

Gallery Henoch is at 555 West 25th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. For information, 917-305-0003 or www.galleryhenoch.com.