Babcock Galleries presents Marylyn Dintenfass’ solo exhibition Souped Up / Tricked Out, a visceral, visual series of oil paintings inspired by a complex love affair with automobiles, on view October 11 – November 18, 2011.  

Dintenfass is known for her use of lush color and an organic lexicon of gestural abstract imagery to express encounters with everyday sensual pleasures.   Art critic Lilly Wei calls her work, “A bracing example of an experiential painting for the present.”  In this series of work, Dintenfass looks into the lustrous machine that has captured America’s cultural imagination for decades. 

Souped Up / Tricked Out brings forth the high-octane, the fleshy, the chrome and chroma of iconic postwar automobiles and their embedded connotations of speed, beauty, identity, and technology.  With classic rock and roll lyrics appearing in the titles, and markings reminiscent of looped tire tracks or brilliant headlights undulating across gridded panels, Dintenfass’ paintings speak to a nostalgic sense of freedom.  But the translucent layers reveal the dualities that have lurked beneath the brightly painted surfaces all along.  In an age of considering consequences and change, Dintenfass reminds us “Things are not what they seem.”

In addition to this exhibition, the artist’s visual interpretation of her lifelong fascination with sporty, sexy muscle cars also inspired her recent monumental, site-specific 30,000 square foot installation, PARALLEL PARK at the Lee County Justice Center Parking Garage in Fort Myers, Florida. The imagery became the basis for 23 individual panels, each measuring 33 feet high by 23 feet wide, fully installed and dedicated in December 2010. A major new monograph, Marylyn Dintenfass Parallel Park, published by Hard Press Editions in association with Hudson Hills Press, documents the story of this project’s inception and execution.  The opening reception and book signing for Souped Up / Tricked Out will celebrate this new series of work and launch the release of the book. 

Marylyn Dintenfass is an internationally known artist whose work is found across the United States and abroad in public, corporate, and private collections such as: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Mississippi Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Souped Up / Tricked Out will be on view at 724 Fifth Avenue on the 11th Floor from October 11 – November 18, 2011.  An opening reception and book signing will be held at the gallery on Thursday, October 13 from 5 – 8pm.  Gallery hours are 10am – 5pm Monday – Friday, and Saturdays by appointment.  For more information, call 212.767.1852, email info@babcockgalleries.com, or visit www.babcockgalleries.com.