GALERIE JEAN-LUC & TAKAKO RICHARD

PAUL HENRY RAMIREZ
CHUNK June 6th – July 25th, 2009

Jean-Luc and Takako Richard are pleased to announce the opening of Chunk, Paul Henry Ramirez’s third solo show in Europe. This young New York based artist will be showing paintings from his new series. Following a collective exhibition entitled Biomorphic Abstraction at the Curt Marcus Gallery in 1998, the term ‘Biomorphic Abstraction’ has since been used by art critics to describe the work of Paul Henry Ramirez. He draws and paints dynamic abstract compositions using geometric forms that that look like internal and external representations of the human body.

Unlike the fantasies conjured up by his earlier works, which used as their source material the sexuality encrypted in the biomorphic forms of Joan Miro, and the early works of Mark Rothko, and Arshile Gorky, the Chunk Paintings are less jocular, less figurative, more sophisticated in their style and composition. The paintings are perfectly flat again. The new designs are much more graphic and powerful, while keeping their dynamism. He “imbues the flat colors, uninflected surfaces, and platonic geometric relationships that reflect the idealism once thought to be the quintessential expression of Modernism’s search for the spiritual and the essential with titillating sexual innuendos and allusions. The results occupy the gap between the rarified realm of formalist principles and historical references, and the commonplace world of popular culture and social relations.
Ramirez develops his imagery by repurposing historical models. The bold and emblematic geometric compositions of the Chunk paintings… employ deStijl and Russian Constructivism principles. The difference lies in the fact that Ramirez’s configures his circles and bars to form suggestive images transforming the geometric and biomorphic vocabularies of formalism into texts that signify whimsical narratives of inter-dependence and inter-action.