Last Saturday, Tim Biskup celebrated the opening of his new solo exhibition “Charge” at Martha Otero Gallery in LA (previewed here). The showcase is a mixture of the artist’s particular interests in early-20th-century art and meditations on his personal experiences, which he refers to as Baroque Modernism. “It was a sort of commitment to push myself really hard and make the best work I’ve ever done, but it was also the beginning of a very deep period of introspection. The word ‘charge’ has lots of different meanings and as I looked at each of them, the show took on a deeper character. It’s become a very complex show for me,” he told Hi-Fructose.
Among new motifs like Cubist-inspired birds and dripping portraits, Tim put a new spin on familiar characters, recalling his formative years in animation. While working on the show, Tim thought a lot about aesthetic and looked at works by Matthew Brannon and other artists who play with mid-century design. Tim said, “I think Barry McGee is doing something like that. His work seems like it could fit right into a 1950s issue of Graphis or Arts & Architecture, but it’s very new. I guess that’s how I’d like to be seen.”
The centerpiece of the show is A Subtle Advertisement for Mind-Numbing Pain, which combines every palette and element in his smaller works and intentionally without a narrative. “The more people identify with a character or story, the less they understand what is really going on with my work. It’s much more of an abstract personal expression than I can convey with the idea of an individual personality doing a specific thing. [That painting] is more about the way that I think and perceive the world.” Although the works have no relationship, Tim’s ambiguous lines and color palettes seem to find a story of their own in the array of emotions they portray. At its core, “Charge” is all about moving forward and doing the best work possible.
“Charge” by Tim Biskup exhibits at Martha Otero gallery September 28 – November 2, 2013.
