John Wesley
Fredericks & Freiser is proud to announce an exhibition of paintings by John Wesley. Question of Women brings together fourteen major works dating from 1992 to 2004. The exhibition will include several paintings on loan from private collections that have never been shown in New York as well as five paintings from the artist's studio that have never been exhibited publicly. Also included are a number of well-known works including Goodnight (1998) and Question of Women (1992).
In these works Wesley depicts women alone or in couples. Faces and bodies are presented with sharp close-ups and unexpected crops that confront the viewer with dramatic moments of intimacy. Pinks and browns of flesh tones are outlined in black and set against powder blue grounds that hold the promise of infinite space and endless privacy. Here desire and distance are one, and eroticism is described by the rhythmic design of dynamic forms.
About the Artist
For almost fifty years, John Wesley (b. 1928) has created an unrelenting and remarkably singular body of work whose subject is no less than the American psyche. While many artists of his generation have used the popular image to explore the cultural landscape, Wesley has employed a comic strip-style and a compositional rigor to make deeply personal, often hermetic paintings that strike at the core of our most primal fears, joys, and desires.
Wesley has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions including PS1/MoMA, New York; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Portikus, Frankfurt. His work is in the collections of numerous museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; and the Kunstmuseum, Basel. A permanent installation of his work is on view at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. This will be his 65th one-person exhibition and his eighth at Fredericks & Freiser.
