Greg Drasler
Rear View, 2015
Oil on canvas
50 x 70 in
GD16863
Green Backs, 2010
Oil on canvas
40 x 32 in.
GD13252
Trojan House, 2018
Oil on canvas
50 x 70 in
GD16864
Back Pages, 2005
Oil on canvas
70 x 60 in.
GD12937
Bus Stop/ Check Point 8, 2020
Oil on canvas
11 x 14 in
GD16879
Nail Biter II, 2009
Oil on canvas
58 x 52 in.
GD12944
Betty Cuningham Gallery is pleased to open Crowded Places/Open Spaces an exhibition of paintings by Greg Drasler. This will be the artist’s fifth exhibition with the Gallery, located at 15 Rivington Street, New York, NY. An online viewing room will accompany the exhibition.
The paintings in this exhibition split into two distinct themes: crowded places where an overhead view of hats- homburgs, bowlers, fedoras, caps - jam together to fill the picture plane, and open spaces where driverless cars traverse surreal landscapes that seemingly extend forever. In all of his work, the artist relies on patterns to create an infinite sense of time and place that continues beyond his canvases. Although two distinct themes, both find root in the artist’s lifelong interest in film; framing, serializing and sequencing is seen in Drasler’s process as well as his subject. The exhibition includes 30 oil paintings created between 2005 and 2021.
Born in Waukegan, IL, Greg Drasler received a BFA and MFA from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana. He has exhibited regularly in the US since the mid 80's. Widely collected privately, Drasler’s work can be seen in the collections of Dow Jones, Inc., New York; Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL; University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana, IL; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; The Fisher Landau Center for Art, Long Island City, New York. Drasler has been the recipient of the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant (2019), John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2015), National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1993) and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (1991). He is currently a Professor at Pratt Institute and previously taught at Princeton University.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an online viewing room and will remain on view at the Gallery through March 20, 2020.
"One Question, One Answer: Greg Drasler"
By: Daniel Wiener
"Metaphorical depictions of construction sites and workers have inspired Greg Drasler’s paintings since the early 1980s. Accumulations of tools and objects populated his paintings, addressing the construction of identity. Crowds of men in hats along with the baggage paintings contained humor, nostalgia, and memory in ongoing assemblies of selves. Drasler describes his painting process as packing and re-packing an empty suitcase or painting the inside out."
"Greg Drasler: Crowded Places / Open Spaces at Betty Cuningham Gallery, in Dialogue with Greg Drasler"
By: Etty Yaniv
"Greg Drasler came to be a metaphorical figurative painter when he lost everything he owned in a fire in 1978, except for two paintings. At that moment he decided to focus exclusively on painting — he was a painter and painting would be everything he needed."
