SURROUNDING: New Paintings by Alex Schuchard

14 February - 5 April 2013

511 Gallery is pleased to present Surrounding, thirteen new paintings by Alex Schuchard that explore
the duality of abstraction and abstract art. Informed by landscape and the visible reality of the
physical world, these works move away swiftly from that mode of representation, positioning
themselves as transient moments (in the artist’s visual present or in his memories of such moments)
and simultaneously as objective ideas about color, forms, and composition—that is, about painting
itself.
The paintings in this series share similarities in palette (muted), brushwork (loose), and the placement
of forms on the pictorial space, but a closer look reveals great differences in tone and mood. The
color blue, for example, whether cobalt, cerulean, or ultramarine, takes on individual characteristics in
Schuchard’s expression on each canvas and becomes watery, dense, fragmented, opaque or
translucent, depending on the artist’s filter, or way of seeing. Those paintings that are predominantly
green, and even the two startlingly black, darker works shimmer in their differences from each other
and from the others, though all are ostensibly treating the same subject in a similar manner.
The subject is neither trees nor water, nor sky; nor is it landscape. Rather, it is the artist’s unique
impression of his surroundings, internal and external merged, transformed into almost lyrical
abstractions. The paintings of Surrounding seem to have made manifest Monet’s admonition to
artists, thinking of his Nympheas:
“When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before
you: a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think here is a little
square of blue, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you,
the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naïve impression of the
scene before you.”
Alex Schuchard is from St. Louis originally, took his BFA in Painting from Washington University,
and then his MFA at University of Delaware. His work has been included in several group exhibitions
at 511 Gallery. This is his second solo show at 511. The artist lives and makes work in New York
City.
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511 Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in the Chelsea area of New York City. In addition to our representation
and exhibition of contemporary artists working in all media, we have an extensive practice, 511 Projects, that specializes
in deaccession of art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, on behalf of both public and private collections. 511
Projects also includes a curatorial practice, in which we organize art exhibitions and events with curators at museums and
art centers in the U.S. and abroad.
For further inquiries, contact Yeorgia Anastasiou, Gallery Manager at 212.255.2885.