JASON MEADOWS: Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to present its fifth solo exhibition of work by Jason Meadows. Meadows creates three-dimensional representations of different real and imagined figures inspired by a range of sources: literary, art historical, pop cultural, and even mathematical. In some, Meadows employs images of fictional personalities (Uncle Sam, Richie Rich, the Monopoly Man, etc.) as metaphors to describe cultural and social situations. The presentation includes a menagerie of characters - fashioned out of rough industrial wood, paint, and metal - whose fabrication undermines their sources and recontextualizes the forms to provoke new meanings. While his work does reference art history, modernism, and philosophies of the past, Meadows' approach remains broadly pluralistic. Rather than exclusively mining modernist art forms, Meadows is committed to a multifarious artistic investigation that translates into intelligent, rigorously developed, and sometimes humorously nuanced work.
In two works, Holly Golightly and Face Case, Meadows draws from Truman Capote's famous novella Breakfast at Tiffany's. Like the story's heroine, Holly Golightly exudes a capricious air and is likewise fashioned to imply movement. The artist's conservative application of basic colors and shapes successfully evokes both a specific imaginary person, as well as the spontaneous, light-hearted attitude that this character has come to epitomize. Further, he transforms simple patterns into the Chanel suit, leopard handbag and flirty earrings of the young socialite. In another nod to Capote, and in keeping with a carnivalesque atmosphere, Face Case employs abstract and multi-colored shapes to suggest a jam- packed party in a tiny New York apartment.
All installation images above: Photo by Jean Vong