A Debt to Pleasure, until April 2, Montserrat College of Art Gallery, Beverly, Massachusetts

“A Debt to Pleasure,” curated by Gallery Director Leonie Bradbury is currently on at the Montserrat College of Art Gallery in
Beverly, Massachusetts.

I'm certain this exhibition will be of great interest to many here, as allegory and realism, something not often seen, yet discussed regularly in such places as art forums. In this exhibition allegorical realism is employed to investigate symbolism in painting (past and present), cultural history and the art world’s insistence on originality and obsession with everything new.

Erik Thor Sandberg, Alterations, oil on panel, 2010. Courtesy of Conner Contemporary, Washington D.C.


Inspired by the visual and symbolic richness of the painting practices of the distant past, the artists in A Debt to Pleasure integrate the sensual and the sinister to question ‘meaning making’ in contemporary art. Featuring Julie Heffernan, David Ording, Shelley Reed, Erik Thor Sandberg, and Anne Siems.

Beyond their flawlessly rendered surfaces, the paintings in A Debt to Pleasure integrate the sensual and the sinister, the vulgar and the mysterious. Each artist explicitly references stylistic techniques and aesthetics of the past to create a provocative body of work that explores meaning making in painting.

An exhibition of technical skill, visual indulgence, and timelessness, “A Debt to Pleasure” presents a series of works that question their place in history. Beyond their flawlessly rendered surfaces, each artist explicitly references stylistic techniques and aesthetics of the past to create a provocative body of work.

Shelley Reed, By the Pool (after d’Hondecoeter), Oil on canvas, 2009. Courtesy of the artist

David Ording, After, oil on canvas, 2005-7. Courtesy of Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston

Julie Heffernan, Self Portrait as Tender Mercenary, 2006, Oil on canvas, 231 x 173 cm / 91 x 68 1/8 in Courtesy of Dodge Gallery, NY

Anne Siems, Snail Girls, mixed media on panel, 2010, Courtesy of Walker Contemporary, Boston

Julie Heffernan at P.P.O.W, until June 5, New York

Julie Heffernan is one of my favourite artists and her latest exhibition Boy, O Boy is currently on at P.P.O.W Gallery, New York.



Great Scout Leader III 2010, oil on canvas, 72 x 54 inches


Press release for the exhibition, courtesy of P.P.O.W
P·P·O·W is pleased to announce Boy, O Boy, our sixth solo exhibition of paintings by Julie Heffernan. Using the male figure for the first time, Heffernan's new works explore the idea of human progress on both personal and political levels. The figures are an homage to transition and the passing on of wisdom from one generation to the next. The space of the canvas meditates on how we move into new chapters of our lives, both personally and as a planet.

In Great Scout Leader III, there is a young boy carrying an overly large backpack filled with golden creatures, stamps and paintings amongst many other special items to help him on his journey. He is wearing a belt equipped with tools (books, apples, and ropes) which may be useful during his passage. He is partially holding up a world that he is about to enter, but this soon to be discovered world is not altogether sound, for there is an avalanche below. In other works such as Budding Boy and Boy in Flight there are boys high up in trees, each creating miniature ecosystems and managing their environments, even as they appear to unravel. Heffernan gives us endearing and fragile images of a new masculinity that signal her faith in a potential yet threatened future world.



Boy in Flight 2010, oil on canvas, 52 x 68 inches



In addition to the paintings of adventurous boys, there are multiple landscape paintings that imagine what alternative worlds would be like if the one we are familiar with vanishes. Self Portrait Moving Out envisions a place where pathways lead to disaster or, conversely, miniature Edens. Self Portrait Setting Up Camp is a proposition for how we might remake the world when it all falls apart. Personal amulets are revealed throughout Heffernan's paintings in the form of tiny images of faces, art treasures and vignettes which reflect history, wisdom and truths.




Self Portrait as Tree House 2010, oil on canvas, 68 x 65 inches



All of these works remark on the nature of human society, the cycles of life and the possibilities of renewal alongside the entrapments of compliance and stasis. Like Heffernan's women, her new characters carry heavy histories of the past as they try to valiantly reshape the future.



Self Portrait as Big World 2008, oil on canvas, 65 x 68 inches



Julie Heffernan was born in 1956 and received her MFA from Yale University. She has had numerous one-person exhibitions around the country and has shown internationally. She has received a Lila Acheson Wallace award, NY Foundation for the Arts award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fulbright-Hayes Grant. She is the program head of the BFA in Studio art Montclair State University.




Tender Trapper 2010, oil on canvas, 66 x 60 inches




Gallery installation courtesy of Julie Heffernan & P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan at Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica & April Gornik at The Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY

I hate it when I find out about an exhibition just after it closes. That is the case with both Julie Heffernan's exhibition at Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica & April Gornik's at The Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY. Even more so since I am a long time fan of Julie Heffernan's art and a great admirer of the work of April Gornik.

Despite the exhibitions closing a short time ago, I've decided to still post them up here, so follow the links to find out more about these two wonderful artists.



Julie Heffernan at Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica

JULIE HEFFERNAN: WHAT HOLDS UP: MAY 23 - JULY 3, 2009

To visit Mark Moore Gallery Click Here



Self Portrait with Albatross, 2008, oil on canvas, 72 X 54 inches

(Press release courtesy Mark Moore Gallery)

Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to announce new paintings from acclaimed artist Julie Heffernan. Heffernan's theatrical and opulent canvases are a hybrid of genres, encompassing portraiture, surrealism and still life, amongst others; yet their Old Master quality goes beyond simple irony or quotation. The initial impact of Heffernan's "self-portraits" recedes to allow the artist's skill in her technique and the allure of the paintings' beauty to emerge and entrance the viewer. Her works act as unexplained allegories of the imagination and indulgent guilty pleasures. Although Heffernan has refined the same subject matter for the better part of 15 years, her works feel particularly poignant today; their slightly ominous tone acting to forewarn, the sumptuous canvases both a talisman and a critique of brazen conspicuous consumption.



Self Portrait as Roots, 2009, oil on canvas, 72 X 56 inches




Study for Self Portrait as Booty , 2009, oil on canvas, 28 x 22 inches


The catalogue published to coincide with Julie Heffernan's solo exhibition at the Mark Moore Gallery, "What Holds Up" is available from BLURB Click Here




April Gornik at The Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY

The Luminous Landscapes of April Gornik ; May 2, 2009 - July 5, 2009

To read the New York Times review of April Gornik's exhibition Click Here

To visit the The Heckscher Museum of Art Click Here


Dune Sky, 2007, Oil on linen, 70" x 81"


(Courtesy of the The Heckscher Museum of Art's website)

A resident of Suffolk County, Long Island, April Gornik can be firmly situated in the distinguished American landscape tradition. Devoid of people, her paintings portray the majesty and allure of nature but in a carefully composed manner that draws on diverse sources of inspiration, including photographs. The result is surreal, transcendental and sublime. Light plays a powerful role in her paintings, creating a sense of mystery, whether it is sunlight or moonlight. In a statement about her work, she says that she likes her work to be intuitive, open to interpretation and beautiful. This exhibition will feature approximately thirteen of her large-scale paintings.



Mirror Lake, China, 2004, Oil on Linen, 78" x 104"




Fresh Light, 1987, Oil on linen, 74" x 96"