The Merry Karnowsky Gallery Shows "Asleep In The Wind", A Group Exhibition

Written by Gloria Stockhausen Thursday, 20 October 2011 23:06

Los Angeles.- The Merry Karnowsky Gallery is proud to present "Asleep In The Wind", an exhibition featuring Mercedes Helnwein, Patrick Morrison and Glen Baxter, on view at the gallery through November 5th. Curator, Mercedes Helnwein says of the exhibition: I’ve chosen Patrick Morrison and Glen Baxter to exhibit with me for various reasons, most importantly the fact that their work genuinely entrances me. To that add the fact that they both currently work on paper, as I do, and this intrigued me because I am very much in love with paper. I had always known Patrick Morrison’s work as very bright and vibrant. His paintings were almost moving on the canvas – very much alive with impossible colors, thick and beautifully contrasting each other, almost wrestling each other. I had heard rumors of something new brewing in his studio, and when I went to visit him earlier this year I walked into a different, explosively different world.

His new series has a rough and haunting air to it that immediately involves one emotionally and makes one an accomplice to that world. His dark, monochromatic black and gray scenes reminded me of the underbelly of an anonymous city, or dreams lurking at the back of one’s head. Patrick’s studio walls were covered with these works, and then he pulled back his studio rug and pulled more works from underneath. I thought this very appropriate for an Irish man. I had been a fan of Glen Baxter’s work since the age of fifteen. I’ve had old exhibition invites of his taped to my fridge, his posters on my wall, photocopies of his drawings framed and hanging in my bathroom. There is so much wrong with this world, aesthetically speaking (not that it’s perfect in other ways, either), but Baxter’s work has always helped level that out for me a little. His work feels right in the marrow of my bones. Glen Baxter inhabits his world with cartoon-like cowboys fiercely enmeshed in

adventures with modern art. That, or far weirder scenarios involving explorers, vintage school kids, detectives and a variety of props -- cacti, for instance, or bizarre contraptions that people wear on their heads. “Weird” is a very important adjective, the operative one in describing Baxter’s work. And since that word also encapsulates a quality very dear to my heart, I fell for his work. Glen Baxter is the master of weird."

Although an Irish native, Patrick Morrison has become a well-known Los Angeles painter whose fans and collectors include Sir Ben Kingsley, Martin Scorsese, Dennis Hopper and Mick Jagger amongst others. He has had one-person exhibitions at the Earl McGraff Gallery in Los Angeles, the American Academy of Motion Pictures, and has shown widely throughout Europe as well. This exhibition premieres his new series of work, which consists of paintings exclusively on paper and using only black and white. Glen Baxter is an English cartoonist trained at the Leeds College of Art. His drawings and their corresponding captions employ art and language inspired by pulp fiction and adventure comics with intellectual jokes and references. Baxter’s work has appeared in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and The Independent on Sunday, and is part of numerous Museum and private collections such as the Tate Gallery and V&A Museum in London. Mercedes Helnwein, daughter of celebrated artist Gottfried Helnwein was born in Vienna Austria, and now works and lives in Ireland and Los Angeles. A writer as well as a fine artist and filmmaker, she borrows from a list of influences as varied as southern blues, turn of the century Russian literature, and sixties comic book artists. In 2010 her “Whistling Past the Graveyard” exhibition in London was bought up by artist and collector Damien Hirst. “Asleep in the Wind” is the first exhibition she has curated.

The Merry Karnowsky Gallery is devoted to exhibiting contemporary works of art that are challenging, innovative and committed to fostering new directions in American art. With a creative stable that is one of the most significantly sought after both nationally and internationally, the gallery has become one of Los Angeles’ premier insurrectionary art venues. In March of 2008, Karnowsky opened a second gallery in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany, committed to bringing fresh, innovative works to the burgeoning Berlin art scene. Articles about the gallery, and/or it's artists have been featured in Juxtapoz, Swindle, Flaunt, Paper, Nylon, The Face, Variety, Giant Robot, Super X Media, Art Week, Art Issues, Flash Art, Modern Painters, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, The LA Weekly, and The Los Angeles Times. MKG Gallery artists have been included in group and solo Museum exhibitions at The Grand Central Art Center, The Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, The Cincinnati Art Center, The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, MOCA Miami, The San Jose Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Visit the gallery's website at ... www.mkgallery.com/

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