CARROLL DUNHAM opens his debut exhibition at Metro Pictures on October 18th with a new group of paintings populated by explicitly violent and sexual box-shaped characters. These darkly-comic figures who sport extravagant head dresses, errant tufts of hair, exaggerated genitalia and dangerous weaponry, are engaged in fierce battles along the periphery of gyrating "planets" and flat "buildings," or inside raw canvas "windows."
The paintings are awash in vividly evocative color and layered with the artists distinctive graphic shorthand that further suggests a psychologically generated narrative. Dunham combines a purists regard for the conventions and history of painting with a deeply committed exploration of subconscious drives and a humorous nod to popular cultural manifestations.
Dunham has had numerous solo exhibitions over the past fifteen years at galleries including Sonnabend Gallery, New York; Jablonka Galerie, Cologne; Galerie Jahn und Fusban, Munich; and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Dunham's work was included in the Whitney Biennial (1985 & 1995), and is in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; the Tate Gallery, London; and the Albertina Museum, Vienna.
The exhibition continues through November 15th.