David Storey: Curated by Trevor Winkfield

DAV I D S T O R E Y

DAV I D S T O R E Y 1 2 . 0 3 . 2 0 0 3 – 1 . 24 . 2 0 0 4

Curated by Trevor Winkfield

f o r wa r d

We are honored to host this exhibition of New York painter David Storey which has been generously curated by fellow artist Trevor Winkfield. Storey, originally from Madison, Wisconsin, has long been admired by his peers as a painter who has forged a unique artistic voice over the years. Winkfield’s appreciation of Storey’s work demonstrates just such admiration.

We appreciate that artists often work tirelessly without thought or concern of exhibition opportunities. CUE is pleased to recognize such commitment by affording just such an opportunity, thus celebrating the efforts of artists such as Mr. Storey.

c u r a t or’s s ta t e m e n t

If one of the basic tenets of early Modernism involved a shift from figuration towards

saying, since Storey—for a serious painter—has always struck me as one of the most

abstraction—a progression sometimes swift—a later painterly strand promulgated its

genial painters of his generation. Not that there’s been much competition. Unusually

exact opposite: figuration leads to abstraction…which in turn begets further figuration.

for a New York painter, misery has been banished from his emotional repertory—

Witness the evolution of Hélion and de Kooning, to name only two of “the confused.”

there’s barely a glower in his entire oeuvre. Though his hues can evoke subterranean

A step further, and the coexistence of abstraction and figuration in a single painting—

depths, he invariably surrounds them with a brightness redolent of desert islands. Or

still, for some of us, the most fertile field opened by Modernism—unleashed a slew of

supermarkets stranded on desert islands.

subsidiary benefits for the viewer. We can now look at nudes with the eyes of a landscapist, or scrutinize a still life from the viewpoint of a portraitist. And, if one is of a

His paintings’ cut and dried divisions eschew blending: everything has its place, layered one atop another or side by side. Yet opposites attract across this flatness. Tall

mischievous bent, Mondrian can register as both linoleum and picture plane. All that’s

static bundles of inert paint jostle heraldic fields where more succulent paint preens

required is a sense of humor.

itself, and from one edge of the canvas metallic grays signal to vermillion patches

Seventeen years ago, the painter and critic Stephen Westfall wryly observed of David Storey’s paintings: “I sometimes see his imagery as walking a tightrope between the museum and the cocktail napkin cartoon.” That may have been the case then, but

across the way, enabling our eyes to ferry across the center. Storey is as much traffic warden as town planner.

Knowing that Storey began as an abstract painter—never painting from the

now I for one no longer see that tightrope, high and low in the meantime having

model, even as a student—can lull us into regarding his works as purely formal state-

gelled, like the two halves of a stereoscopic view finally brought into focus.

ments. On the one hand, pondering how smartly he’s slotted his horizontals into his

Storey derives from that generation which first came to prominence in the 1980s, the

verticals, on the other tracking his brushstrokes along their runic routes. But just when

generation which regarded Modernism’s styles as either quarries to mine or nurseries

we think we’ve figured out what a “Storey” invlolves, lo and behold a stable door

to play in. Everything was up for grabs since, as Storey noted, “There was more ore

opens and here, in the latest canvases, unexpected horses prance into view. As the

there than we thought.” Thus, echoes and quotes from the biomorphism of Miro abut

serials promise: To Be Continued.

hard edges purloined from the Bauhaus; hats are doffed to Klee’s wittiness and Newman’s sobriety. But all debts are freely acknowledged before being ploughed back into Storey’s personal surfaces. And with a great deal of buoyant humor, one might add, a humor deriving from daily doses of childhood television (Storey was a denizen of Southern California, after all). The quotidian, in fact, has always played an important role in structuring his paintings. Though he’s careful to disguise his subject matter beneath layerings, outlines of cumbersome furniture, chair legs revolving on lathes and all manner of gears and cogwheels can be detected. But all has been turned upside down and crammed into a mad inventor’s laboratory.

The paintings, begun in acrylic and finished in oil (acrylic allows Storey to work quicker in the initial stages) utilize color to “equate humor with profound joy and express big truths without succumbing to pretension.” This almost goes without

Trevor Winkfield

a r t i s t’s s tat e m e n t Ten Aphorisms, Two Epigrams and a Quip

TE N APHORISMS Painting is trans natural.

Good and bad colors reflect the same light.

Painting is always about here and there.

All thought is a manual skill.

There are no adjectives in black and white.

Looking’s erosion.

Blue is a monument to the memory of red.

Beauty is like a rock on the ground, hard and still and everywhere.

Some colors are detergent, others solid steel.

T WO EPIGRAMS 1 The oracle stutters, our Sybil’s asleep – My themes, it seems, are not so deep 2 Any shape needs arms and legs (one head and a few small feet) Overlapped and clarified, Mute, but born to speak.

A QUIP Style is sanity; obscurity, divine.

David Storey

THE SILVER SPEAR Oil on canvas, 92" x 109", 200 3

SOL INVICTUS Oil on canvas, 53" x 38", 200 2

THE DOG'S CLO C K Oil on canvas, 42" D., 1988-2003

ADORAMA Oil on canvas, 65" x 156" 200 3

MIDNIGHT'S PLOW Oil on canvas, 50" x 30", 1985-200 2

THE BASHFUL SUITO R Oil on canvas, 90" x 60", 1998-2000

VINDEX Oil on canvas, 30" x 25", 2000

THE SMOKING MIRROR Oil on canvas, 86" x 90", 2000

S P R I TZ E N P I P E R Oil on canvas, 58" x 38", 200 3

THE AGE OF BRASS Oil on canvas, 81" x 54", 200 3

a r t i s t ’ s b i o g ra p h y David Storey, born in Madison, WI in 1948 is an artist who lives and works in New York City. He received both a BA and an MFA from the University of California a t Davis, graduating in 1972. Storey exhibited with Jay Gorney Modern Art in the mid 1980's and with Hirschl and Adler Modern from 1986 to 1993. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the United States and abroad.

He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, the Milton and Sally Avery Residency at Yaddo, and grants from the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. He is married to the artist Jane Kent. They have a son, Jack.

curat or’ s bi og raphy Trevor Winkfield was born in Leeds, England and after studying painting at the Royal College of Art in London he moved to New York City in 1969, where he has lived ever since. His work is represented by Tibor de Nagy Gallery. A book on his paintings and drawings, Trevor Winkfield’s Pageant, with essays by Jed Perl and John Ashbery, was published in 1997 by Hard Press. Besides painting, he has collaborated extensively on books with poets of the New York School, including John Ashbery, Harry Mathews, Ron Padgett, Charles North, Larry Fagin, John Yau and Chris topher Edgar. His essays on Vermeer, Florine Stettheimer, Joseph Cornell, Chardin, Jasper Johns, Gerald Murphy, Myron Stout, Leonardo da Vinci, John Graham, George Braque and others have appeared in such magazines as Art in America and Modern Painters. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

SHEILD AND BUCKLER Acrylic on canvas, 14" x 22", 200 2

c u e a r t f o u n d a t i o n m i s s i o n s tat e m e n t

B OA R D O F D I R E C TO R S

Gregory Amenoff CUE Art Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides deserving artists

Thomas G. Devine

from around the country an opportunity for solo exhibition. Located in New York’s

Thomas K. Y. Hsu

Chelsea gallery district, the Foundation’s 2,000 sq.ft. ground floor exhibition

Brian D. Starer

space affords these artists professional exposure comparable to that offered by neighboring commercial galleries, without the usual financial restraints. CUE does

A DV I S O RY C O U N C I L

not promote a particular school of artistic thought or practice; rather, the criteria

Gregory Amenoff

for selection have been devised with the sole purpose in mind of exhibiting work

Vicky A. Clark

by artists who have not had a solo exhibition in a commercial venue, or have

William Corbett

received minimal exposure in New York in the last ten years.

Petah Coyne

At the core of CUE’s mission is the determination to foster an agenda-free

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program of twelve exhibiting artists a year, each handpicked by a single curator.

Bruce Ferguson

An on-site artist-in-residence program offers selected artists studio space in which

Sanford Hirsch

to produce or finish work for their exhibition at CUE.

Dana Hoey

The responsibility to choose qualified individuals from the visual arts and beyond to act as exhibition curators rests with CUE’s Advisory Council, an honorary

G A L L E R Y D I R E C TO R

group of artists and leading figures from the arts education, applied arts, art

Jeremy Adams

history, and literary communities. The curators, in turn, will play a role throughout the exhibition process, helping the artist catalogue his or her work for exhibition,

G A L L E R Y A S S I S TA N T

and participating in gallery lectures and programs.

Sandhini Poddar

Educational initiatives in the form of public programs and artists’ dialogues will take advantage of the diverse community that participates in CUE's gallery and studio programming. Foundation internships and stipends will help prepare the next generation of artists and art educators by providing practical working knowledge of the art making and exhibition process.

A L L A R T WO R K © D AV I D S TO R E Y A L L P H OT OG RA P H S © J E F F S T U R G E S C ATA LO G D E S I G N E D B Y S P E C K , B R O O K LY N , N Y