Paul Wonner: A Bountiful Feast
Paul Thiebaud Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Paul Wonner: A Bountiful Feast on Saturday, January 18th from 3-5pm, with remarks at 3:30pm. On view from the artist鈥檚 estate will be twelve paintings on paper from Wonner鈥檚 heralded series of still lifes from the second half of his career. Full of produce, cut flowers, and other everyday objects arranged on broad flat surfaces, Wonner鈥檚 works celebrate the common objects of contemporary life through his modern reinterpretation of the historic genre of the still life. The exhibition will be on view through March 8, 2025.
Using vivid colors and complex compositional arrangements, Paul Wonner took his inspiration for this series from 17th and 18th century Dutch still life paintings. In doing so, however, Wonner turned the traditional notions about the appearance and meaning of a still life completely on their head. Through Wonner鈥檚 artistic lens, the perspectival plane has been tilted up to exaggerate the foreground, seemingly unrelated objects are arranged singularly across the composition, and the elements of story telling and implicit meaning usually associated with the genre have been removed. Of particular note is Wonner鈥檚 use of pattern in the fabrics and tea towels he employs to create visual textures and provide structure for the other objects to be placed on.
Originating in the mid-1970s, Wonner鈥檚 still lifes afforded an important boost to his career at a time when the art world was returning to realism as an accepted and even lauded mode of painting. With the help of Philip Guston, the emergence of the 鈥渘ew realism鈥� in the mid-1970s came at a time when the course of modern art had reached an apogee through minimalism and conceptualism, leaving room for something as timeless as the realistic image to be considered 鈥渘ew鈥� again.
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Paul Thiebaud Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Paul Wonner: A Bountiful Feast on Saturday, January 18th from 3-5pm, with remarks at 3:30pm. On view from the artist鈥檚 estate will be twelve paintings on paper from Wonner鈥檚 heralded series of still lifes from the second half of his career. Full of produce, cut flowers, and other everyday objects arranged on broad flat surfaces, Wonner鈥檚 works celebrate the common objects of contemporary life through his modern reinterpretation of the historic genre of the still life. The exhibition will be on view through March 8, 2025.
Using vivid colors and complex compositional arrangements, Paul Wonner took his inspiration for this series from 17th and 18th century Dutch still life paintings. In doing so, however, Wonner turned the traditional notions about the appearance and meaning of a still life completely on their head. Through Wonner鈥檚 artistic lens, the perspectival plane has been tilted up to exaggerate the foreground, seemingly unrelated objects are arranged singularly across the composition, and the elements of story telling and implicit meaning usually associated with the genre have been removed. Of particular note is Wonner鈥檚 use of pattern in the fabrics and tea towels he employs to create visual textures and provide structure for the other objects to be placed on.
Originating in the mid-1970s, Wonner鈥檚 still lifes afforded an important boost to his career at a time when the art world was returning to realism as an accepted and even lauded mode of painting. With the help of Philip Guston, the emergence of the 鈥渘ew realism鈥� in the mid-1970s came at a time when the course of modern art had reached an apogee through minimalism and conceptualism, leaving room for something as timeless as the realistic image to be considered 鈥渘ew鈥� again.
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On view from the artist鈥檚 estate are twelve paintings on paper from Wonner鈥檚 heralded series of still lifes from the second half of his career.
