Jan 29 Thu DAVID KRUT SHOWS PIERS SECUNDA
Jan 29 Thu 6-8pm David Krut Projects Gallery 526 West 26 Street #816 British Artist, Piers Secunda Presents Archived Crude Oil Paintings
Posted on January 22, 2015 by textgenie
The Invitation
---------------------------
Please join us on January 29th from 6 to 8 PM to celebrate the opening of Archived Oil by Piers Secunda, presented by Jessica Carlisle and David Krut. Archived Oil showcases a complex body of works, which utilize silkscreen printing with crude oil to depict images of the early days of the oil industry. Each work has been printed with the specific crude oils from the oil fields and wells which the artwork depicts, thereby telling the story of the oil age in its own medium.
Piers’ work will be on display January 29 through February 28, 2015 at David Krut Projects gallery located at 526 West 26th Street #816, New York, NY 10001. Tel 255 3094 Tuesday – Saturday 10-6pm Miranda Leighfield, Meghan Allynn Johnson
Piers Secunda makes sculptures out of paint, by casting the component parts and using assemblage techniques to build the work, often using industrial fixtures (also reproduced in paint) to hold them together. http://pierssecunda.com/
Piers Secunda Making oil paintings out of ... crude oil.
Piers Secunda Making oil paintings out of … crude oil.
NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Jessica Carlisle and David Krut Projects present Archived Oil, a series of unique crude oil screenprints by British artist, Piers Secunda opening Thursday, January 29th at David Krut Projects gallery in New York City.
Secunda makes sculptures out of paint, constructing complex forms by carving and casting the medium. In the spring of 2009, he developed the idea of painting and printing his sculptures with crude oil to depict the early days of the oil industry, combining the texture of geopolitics with an abstract painting practice.
Secunda states, “Crude oil plays a fundamental role in every aspect of 21st century living, from energy and transport to agriculture and medicine, and is the main component of the world’s most frequently used material – plastic. If crude oil is the world’s ultimate facilitator, it must therefore be a contender as the ultimate artist’s material.” Its presence alone speaks immeasurable volumes, but it is crude oil’s ability to function as a painting and printing medium that allows it to be employed as an artistic tool.
Archived Oil showcases a complex body of works, which utilize silkscreen printing with crude oil to depict images of the early days of the oil industry. Each work has been printed with the specific crude oils from the oil fields and wells which the artwork depicts, thereby telling the story of the oil age in its own medium. These works range from Baku in Azerbaijan and Spindletop in Texas, to scenes of California and Colorado. After finding a photograph of Saudi Arabia’s first successful oil well, Dammam Number 7, Secunda searched for two years for oil from that specific well in order to silkscreen the photograph. Eventually the oil was found, and the resulting crude oil print tells a story of a fleeting moment in time, which has had a seismic effect on global politics and economics ever since.
Archived Oil will be on display January 29 through February 28, 2015 at David Krut Projects gallery located at 526 West 26th Street #816, New York, NY 10001. Opening reception is on January 29th from 6 to 8 PM.
Piers Secunda lives and works in London and New York. He was born in 1976 and studied Painting at Chelsea College of Art. His work has been exhibited in galleries and public spaces across the world and is included in a number of important collections. Recent exhibitions include: “Piers Secunda” A Retrospective, UpDown Gallery, Kent, UK, 2014 and “War Stories” William Holman Gallery, New York, 2014 (group show curated by Anthony Haden-Guest). He is currently working on a publication of crude oil works with Endeavour London Publishers, and Getty Images. Secunda is represented by UpDown Gallery in the UK and Kuub Kulture Space in Holland. For more information about Piers Secunda and his work, please visit http://www.pierssecunda.com.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW IT TURNED OUT
A finer result that the oil industry probably deserves. Piers Secunda is a true artist in his preoccupation, which is a combination of performance art and painting. He became fascinated with the artifact of historic achievements in the petroleum industry, namely the actual oil which gushed from wells which changed the course of the global economy. He obtains samples from dealers who collect them by going on eBay, sometimes even using oil contained in anniversary paperweights from major oil companies who made the big strikes. He then paints the image of the photo of the original rig and the men who drilled with it onto hardened paint, a unique commemoration of commercial successes which have transformed the planet. The result is a work which resonates deeply and more loudly than a photograph, and which retains decorative value for the walls of the home and offices of those in the industry who should be especially interested in buying his works, even if the oilmen are going through a rather trying period financially at present, with oil prices at new lows. Secunda himself is a charming young Brit, earnest and wholly immersed in his work, yet eager to talk about his methods and purpose.
Questions we asked the artist:
Q: Is your art using crude oil financed by the oil companies?
No, I’ve not received any money from oil companies, and in fact haven’t been offered any either. I was looking for a material which could be made to work like a paint but which would bring geopolitics into the work simply by its presence (up to that point the work I had been making was about the developing of an abstract painting practice and very introverted in its focus, too busy ignoring the activities of world outside the studio, for my liking).
I had just started reading Daniel Yergin’s ‘The Prize’ when I thought of painting with crude oil, so bought some specimen samples on ebay and started experimenting. Very quickly it became clear that crude oil could be fixed and it flowed very effectively from a paint brush. The current works grew out of shards and sheets of poured floor paint, which I painted and spattered with oil. I produced these to generate material for assemblages, which was my direction at the time. The individual fragments looked really good on their own, so I started to mount them on the wall and think more about imagery that was appropriate to them.
The first oil I laid my hands on came from a place called ‘Oil Creek’ in Pennsylvania. When I researched it, I learned that it was the source of the first oil rush. As a further experiment I tried to print some images of Oil Creek and in the process taught myself how to make silkscreen prints. Since crude oil is the primary material of our age, and since we’re in the midst of the petro chemical age, which largely defines and enables most human activity, why not use it to record what we’re doing?
These oil prints started with oil from, and then imagery of the early days of the oil industry, so I’ve covered some of the visuals which relate to it but the subject matter is rolling slowly forwards in time and away from this. These works are starting to gradually build up into an visual archive of the oil age. It just grew that way.
I have felt for a long time that the most significant thing an artist can do, is to make a record or statement about the time in which they are alive. These works, like the more severe works that I have made, record fleeting moments of potent human activity which have affected or altered the direction of modern history.
The hook for me with crude oil is that if it’s the ultimate facilitator of our world, it must be a contender as the ultimate artists material.
Q: Will oil people be at the opening?
Email invitations have been sent out far an wide, so it’s inevitable of course that some oil people will click with the works and may come to see them, but the work hasn’t been made for their benefit. If some come to the opening, that’s their call, I suppose.
Q: Is there an environmental angle?
I’ve never taken a political position in any of the work I’ve made, so the answer is no. The presence of crude oil in itself is political, because oil is inseparable from politics and environmental issues, but the works don’t take a political or an environmental position. They just record, much as the Taliban works did.”
Read MorePosted on January 22, 2015 by textgenie
The Invitation
---------------------------
Please join us on January 29th from 6 to 8 PM to celebrate the opening of Archived Oil by Piers Secunda, presented by Jessica Carlisle and David Krut. Archived Oil showcases a complex body of works, which utilize silkscreen printing with crude oil to depict images of the early days of the oil industry. Each work has been printed with the specific crude oils from the oil fields and wells which the artwork depicts, thereby telling the story of the oil age in its own medium.
Piers’ work will be on display January 29 through February 28, 2015 at David Krut Projects gallery located at 526 West 26th Street #816, New York, NY 10001. Tel 255 3094 Tuesday – Saturday 10-6pm Miranda Leighfield, Meghan Allynn Johnson
Piers Secunda makes sculptures out of paint, by casting the component parts and using assemblage techniques to build the work, often using industrial fixtures (also reproduced in paint) to hold them together. http://pierssecunda.com/
Piers Secunda Making oil paintings out of ... crude oil.
Piers Secunda Making oil paintings out of … crude oil.
NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Jessica Carlisle and David Krut Projects present Archived Oil, a series of unique crude oil screenprints by British artist, Piers Secunda opening Thursday, January 29th at David Krut Projects gallery in New York City.
Secunda makes sculptures out of paint, constructing complex forms by carving and casting the medium. In the spring of 2009, he developed the idea of painting and printing his sculptures with crude oil to depict the early days of the oil industry, combining the texture of geopolitics with an abstract painting practice.
Secunda states, “Crude oil plays a fundamental role in every aspect of 21st century living, from energy and transport to agriculture and medicine, and is the main component of the world’s most frequently used material – plastic. If crude oil is the world’s ultimate facilitator, it must therefore be a contender as the ultimate artist’s material.” Its presence alone speaks immeasurable volumes, but it is crude oil’s ability to function as a painting and printing medium that allows it to be employed as an artistic tool.
Archived Oil showcases a complex body of works, which utilize silkscreen printing with crude oil to depict images of the early days of the oil industry. Each work has been printed with the specific crude oils from the oil fields and wells which the artwork depicts, thereby telling the story of the oil age in its own medium. These works range from Baku in Azerbaijan and Spindletop in Texas, to scenes of California and Colorado. After finding a photograph of Saudi Arabia’s first successful oil well, Dammam Number 7, Secunda searched for two years for oil from that specific well in order to silkscreen the photograph. Eventually the oil was found, and the resulting crude oil print tells a story of a fleeting moment in time, which has had a seismic effect on global politics and economics ever since.
Archived Oil will be on display January 29 through February 28, 2015 at David Krut Projects gallery located at 526 West 26th Street #816, New York, NY 10001. Opening reception is on January 29th from 6 to 8 PM.
Piers Secunda lives and works in London and New York. He was born in 1976 and studied Painting at Chelsea College of Art. His work has been exhibited in galleries and public spaces across the world and is included in a number of important collections. Recent exhibitions include: “Piers Secunda” A Retrospective, UpDown Gallery, Kent, UK, 2014 and “War Stories” William Holman Gallery, New York, 2014 (group show curated by Anthony Haden-Guest). He is currently working on a publication of crude oil works with Endeavour London Publishers, and Getty Images. Secunda is represented by UpDown Gallery in the UK and Kuub Kulture Space in Holland. For more information about Piers Secunda and his work, please visit http://www.pierssecunda.com.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW IT TURNED OUT
A finer result that the oil industry probably deserves. Piers Secunda is a true artist in his preoccupation, which is a combination of performance art and painting. He became fascinated with the artifact of historic achievements in the petroleum industry, namely the actual oil which gushed from wells which changed the course of the global economy. He obtains samples from dealers who collect them by going on eBay, sometimes even using oil contained in anniversary paperweights from major oil companies who made the big strikes. He then paints the image of the photo of the original rig and the men who drilled with it onto hardened paint, a unique commemoration of commercial successes which have transformed the planet. The result is a work which resonates deeply and more loudly than a photograph, and which retains decorative value for the walls of the home and offices of those in the industry who should be especially interested in buying his works, even if the oilmen are going through a rather trying period financially at present, with oil prices at new lows. Secunda himself is a charming young Brit, earnest and wholly immersed in his work, yet eager to talk about his methods and purpose.
Questions we asked the artist:
Q: Is your art using crude oil financed by the oil companies?
No, I’ve not received any money from oil companies, and in fact haven’t been offered any either. I was looking for a material which could be made to work like a paint but which would bring geopolitics into the work simply by its presence (up to that point the work I had been making was about the developing of an abstract painting practice and very introverted in its focus, too busy ignoring the activities of world outside the studio, for my liking).
I had just started reading Daniel Yergin’s ‘The Prize’ when I thought of painting with crude oil, so bought some specimen samples on ebay and started experimenting. Very quickly it became clear that crude oil could be fixed and it flowed very effectively from a paint brush. The current works grew out of shards and sheets of poured floor paint, which I painted and spattered with oil. I produced these to generate material for assemblages, which was my direction at the time. The individual fragments looked really good on their own, so I started to mount them on the wall and think more about imagery that was appropriate to them.
The first oil I laid my hands on came from a place called ‘Oil Creek’ in Pennsylvania. When I researched it, I learned that it was the source of the first oil rush. As a further experiment I tried to print some images of Oil Creek and in the process taught myself how to make silkscreen prints. Since crude oil is the primary material of our age, and since we’re in the midst of the petro chemical age, which largely defines and enables most human activity, why not use it to record what we’re doing?
These oil prints started with oil from, and then imagery of the early days of the oil industry, so I’ve covered some of the visuals which relate to it but the subject matter is rolling slowly forwards in time and away from this. These works are starting to gradually build up into an visual archive of the oil age. It just grew that way.
I have felt for a long time that the most significant thing an artist can do, is to make a record or statement about the time in which they are alive. These works, like the more severe works that I have made, record fleeting moments of potent human activity which have affected or altered the direction of modern history.
The hook for me with crude oil is that if it’s the ultimate facilitator of our world, it must be a contender as the ultimate artists material.
Q: Will oil people be at the opening?
Email invitations have been sent out far an wide, so it’s inevitable of course that some oil people will click with the works and may come to see them, but the work hasn’t been made for their benefit. If some come to the opening, that’s their call, I suppose.
Q: Is there an environmental angle?
I’ve never taken a political position in any of the work I’ve made, so the answer is no. The presence of crude oil in itself is political, because oil is inseparable from politics and environmental issues, but the works don’t take a political or an environmental position. They just record, much as the Taliban works did.”
