Former Pratt in Venice professor of Painting Chris Wright will exhibit recent paintings in a group exhibition, VORACIOUS EYE: Exploring Foods' Varied Meanings, at Abrazo Gallery in New York. The exhibition, curated by Suzanne Varni and Linda Griggs, will be on view from August 7–26, 2019, with a reception on Tuesday, August 20 from 6–9pm.
Additionally, Wright has received a Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts Residency in Wyoming for the month of October 2019, and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship for November–December 2019, during which he will produce a new body of work. He has received a sabbatical and been awarded a Faculty Grant from Pratt Institute for the fall semester.
Auguroni, Chris!
VORACIOUS EYE: Exploring Foods' Varied Meanings
Food is Love, an Object, in Danger, a Danger, Entertainment, Symbolic, a Cypher, a Seduction, and a Substitute for the Body.
Food may well have been art’s first subject. The oldest known are Indonesian cave paintings of a pig and bull at 35,400 and 40,000 years old respectively.
In the last ten years or more the conversation around food has expanded. Some include wars that result from food insecurity and their impact on the environment, the use of GMOs in agribusiness, urban food deserts, and the depletion of the oceans. Personal conversations center around food allergies, both deadly and imagined. When food is entertainment we talk about celebrity chefs and destination restaurants.
From mythology and fairytales come the horror of children devoured; from nature, the male consumed by the female; and from the most primal places, an atavistic hunger that engulfs even itself.
This show explores foods' varied meanings including pointed political abstractions, voluptuousness and the body, and fond, regional memories.
—Linda Griggs
Edible Options
Everyone can relate to eating in some way or another. It is an act that people execute similarly but experience differently, often in very personal ways. The eclectic group of visual artists whose work appears in the exhibition serves up a wide assortment of interpretations on this common theme. Though the artworks are all directly or indirectly inspired by the concept of eating, the content and execution is remarkably varied. The mediums of painting, photography, and sculpture are all used to express individualistic views and experiences that are best described visually.
—Michael Katchen
VORACIOUS EYE: Exploring Foods' Varied Meanings is on view at Abrazo Gallery, The Clemente, 2nd floor, 107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY 10002, from August 7–26, 2019, with a reception on Tuesday, August 20 from 6–9pm.
