Ronald Feldman Fine Arts displays 'Manifest Destination' by David Opdyke

Written by Pearlie Rossow Saturday, 30 April 2011 22:42

New York City - Ronald Feldman Fine Arts is pleased to announce Manifest Destination, an exhibition of recent sculptures and drawings by David Opdyke. A self-proclaimed “NPR junkie,” Opdyke deftly engages a wide range of contemporary themes with subtle humor and controlled chaos. On exhibition from 6 September through 11 October, 2008.

Opdyke’s process is open-ended; he begins with a few structural rules and a limited kit of components, and allows the work to grow intuitively. He likens the building process to metastasis: “a barely-controlled accumulation of elements leading to decisions and forms I would never have anticipated or predicted.” The result of this guided entropy is exemplified in large sculptures such as Zenith (2008) and Dredge (2007).

In direct juxtaposition to six large-scale sculptures, the artist will exhibit a group of miniature wall sculptures. Opdyke uses miniaturization to propose projects of absurd ambition and size while maintaining a sense of authenticity. “In the grown-up world, a scale model presents a convincing alteration of reality, conveying authority and the existence of a well-considered plan. At the same time, models are a branch of the toy family: they can lend their credibility to half-baked and preposterous schemes.”

Themes of accumulation and disarray are further developed in Opdyke’s drawings. A seemingly straightforward rendering of land masses, upon closer inspection, becomes heaps of empty packages and detritus, as seen in works like Mini Storage and Inventory (2008). The aggregation of objects can take over the characteristics of a landscape, forcing an inversion of foreground and background. We no longer encounter objects in a landscape, but a landscape of objects.

This is David Opdyke’s first solo exhibition with the Feldman Gallery. His work has previously been exhibited at the University at Albany Art Museum, the Chicago Cultural Center, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, and the North Dakota Museum of Art. Mr. Opdyke received the Aldrich Emerging Artist Award from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in 2004, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture in 2005.

Ronald Feldman Fine Arts was founded in November 1971 at 33 East 74th Street by Ronald and Frayda Feldman. In 1982, after one season with both uptown and downtown exhibition spaces, the gallery consolidated at 31 Mercer Street in SoHo. Since its founding, gallery artists have participated in more than 1,800 national and international exhibitions. The gallery exhibits contemporary painting, sculpture, installations, drawings, prints, and hosts performances. Visit : www.feldmangallery.com/pages/home_frame.html