June 7 - July 20, 2018
Triad
James Busby
Tom Sanford
Christian Schumann
Installation Views
Selected Works
Neumann Wolfson Art is pleased to announce the opening of “Triad”, a three person exhibition including James Busby, Tom Sanford and Christian Schumann.
The triad extends from three disparate points–Chapin, South Carolina; Harlem, New York; and Austin, Texas, respectively–but of artistic sensibilities as well. Here, three aesthetics converge: classical representation, formal abstraction and pop art mimetism. These seemingly disparate elements triangulate not in divergent opposition but in alignment with a sort of fraternity of modern painters.
“Karen and I recently went to see a jazz concert. What I found interesting was the correlation between what we are doing as artists and what they were doing as musicians. The trumpet player would start playing a riff and the drummer would respond, followed by guitar and bass player. We are all bringing different instruments and coexisting in the same space.
Tom’s visit played an important aesthetic role. The cut-outs and color palette in my work mirror those of Tom’s ‘can portraits’. Many of the cut-outs are the exact dimensions of a can. I have always admired Christian and Tom’s work and feel like there are similarities even if not obvious. I also feel like we share a fondness for the craft of painting–the way Christian paints a line, Tom layers a portrait and the way I build a surface.”
-James Busby
“In recent years I have tried to use my painting as an opportunity for social interaction. I might paint someone’s portrait, or perhaps share a few beers with a friend and paint the beers. So, I took a trip down to stay with James and his family, in order see if spending some time would influence either of our work for the show. It seemed natural that a trip down to Chapin would result in a painting of Busby in his studio, which later influenced the motifs in other work in the spirit of collaboration. Busby even ventured so far as to saw a couple of his unpainted panels in half and send me a section of two of his paintings to work on, using the remaining halves himself.”
-Tom Sanford
“Most of my work was made not knowing how it would turn out until I began painting, and as I did, I responded to my own marks and mistakes. Some of the works on paper evolved over several years.
I painted several unusual pastry forms, mutant botanical forms and graffiti forms as a sort of survey of things familiar yet foreign. Data migration is an odd term that I'd been hearing on the radio frequently and I adapted the idea to represent individuals as data, migrants as data, foreignness as data–wanted or unwanted, save or delete. Future generations as data forms, living inside the grid.
My approach to painting feels, to me, like jazz improvisation. One piece I began making in 2007 has been painted over and over with layers of interaction throughout time, migrating the data in form.”
-Christian Schumann
The triad extends from three disparate points–Chapin, South Carolina; Harlem, New York; and Austin, Texas, respectively–but of artistic sensibilities as well. Here, three aesthetics converge: classical representation, formal abstraction and pop art mimetism. These seemingly disparate elements triangulate not in divergent opposition but in alignment with a sort of fraternity of modern painters.
“Karen and I recently went to see a jazz concert. What I found interesting was the correlation between what we are doing as artists and what they were doing as musicians. The trumpet player would start playing a riff and the drummer would respond, followed by guitar and bass player. We are all bringing different instruments and coexisting in the same space.
Tom’s visit played an important aesthetic role. The cut-outs and color palette in my work mirror those of Tom’s ‘can portraits’. Many of the cut-outs are the exact dimensions of a can. I have always admired Christian and Tom’s work and feel like there are similarities even if not obvious. I also feel like we share a fondness for the craft of painting–the way Christian paints a line, Tom layers a portrait and the way I build a surface.”
-James Busby
“In recent years I have tried to use my painting as an opportunity for social interaction. I might paint someone’s portrait, or perhaps share a few beers with a friend and paint the beers. So, I took a trip down to stay with James and his family, in order see if spending some time would influence either of our work for the show. It seemed natural that a trip down to Chapin would result in a painting of Busby in his studio, which later influenced the motifs in other work in the spirit of collaboration. Busby even ventured so far as to saw a couple of his unpainted panels in half and send me a section of two of his paintings to work on, using the remaining halves himself.”
-Tom Sanford
“Most of my work was made not knowing how it would turn out until I began painting, and as I did, I responded to my own marks and mistakes. Some of the works on paper evolved over several years.
I painted several unusual pastry forms, mutant botanical forms and graffiti forms as a sort of survey of things familiar yet foreign. Data migration is an odd term that I'd been hearing on the radio frequently and I adapted the idea to represent individuals as data, migrants as data, foreignness as data–wanted or unwanted, save or delete. Future generations as data forms, living inside the grid.
My approach to painting feels, to me, like jazz improvisation. One piece I began making in 2007 has been painted over and over with layers of interaction throughout time, migrating the data in form.”
-Christian Schumann