Tim Buwalda: Neighborhood Projects Exhibition Catalogue

Neighborhood Projects TIM BUWALDA

Neighborhood Projects TIM BUWALDA

“We’ve always loved the automobile, and we all love Henry Ford’s original vision to open highways to all mankind, the freedom and movement.”

Alan Mullaly Former President and CEO of Ford Motor Company

tim buwalda essay

| Neighborhood Projects

| Margery Gordon

graphic design photography editing

| Nuurs Ortiz

| Shayne Shnapier

printing

| Bellak Color

exhibition date isbn

| Luisa Lignarolo

| February 2 - March 9, 2019

| 978-0-9998911-6-28

copyright

2019 | LnS GALLERY

image captions

cover

back cover

| Into the Sun / Burn, 2018, oil on canvas, 64.5 x 96 inches Purposeful Obsolescence, 2018, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches

2610 SW 28th Lane Miami FL 33133 305 987 5642 INFO@LNSGALLERY.COM WWW.LNSGALLERY.COM

4

The next in our series of exhibitions and publications documents the extraordinary work of photo-based realist painter Tim Buwalda. Two years in the making, the exhibit — titled Neighborhood Projects — explores the automobile, set against backdrops of humble origins, as the ideal symbol of reference to the American Dream. We extend our gratitude to Margery Gordon, who provides a poignant, investigative essay on prevalent themes found throughout the exhibition.

Buwalda, in this series and true to his past works, continues to skillfully extract beauty from within the unexpected. The artist recalls traditional genres of still life and portraiture in his work, yet features an unlikely protagonist as his muse. His paintings are marked with a masterful precision that captivates and awes the viewer. As great admirers of his work, we are honored to present Neighborhood Projects by Tim Buwalda.

Luisa Lignarolo and Sergio Cernuda

5

SCENES FROM AN AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOOD Timothy Buwalda Captures Vintage Dreams in Symbolic Auto-portraits

By Margery Gordon

The cars that star in Timothy Buwalda’s paintings are characters in their own right, real actors discovered in suburban driveways, camera-ready for cinéma vérité vignettes of the quintessential American quest for success. A talented scout always on the lookout for classic beauties harboring untold tales, Buwalda spies chiseled figures disguised by generic cloaks and recognizes familiar faces lined with experience. The artist unearthed his latest crop of silent muses by scouring the quotidian sidestreets and middle-class quarters of South Florida’s suburban sprawl, fertile territory for stagnant dreams, forsaken treasures and abandoned projects more likely to be sheltered from voyeurs in colder climes. The enigmatic set pieces of Neighborhood Projects engage audiences’ imaginations with glimpses of property, disclosing just enough authentic details about the home-lives of each model to suggest dramatic backstories for their unseen inhabitants.

Intertwining the primary extensions of American identity widens the frame and symbolic scope of Buwalda’s auto-portraits, advancing his body of work by taking a few steps back from the tighter compositions and abstracted close-ups of crumpled chrome in earlier series that established his signature blend of exacting precision and expressive shading. Balancing verisimilitude with perceptual veracity, he tempers the impermeable veneer of photorealist pioneers with subtle subjective interventions. The conscious presence of the artist’s hand evokes the impossibility of perfection and the inevitability of change – for man and machine alike – as well as the ideals that propel invention and consumption.

To elevate these objects of desire, Buwalda often grounds the point of view at a level reminiscent of his boyhood tinkering in West Palm Beach garages under the tutelage of masculine elders. Unexpected perspectives magnify the strongest features, exaggerating retro-futuristic curves of a 1960s Plymouth muscle car to extraterrestrial dimensions with the low side angle of Into the Sun / Burn, while variegation from orange to magenta burnishes its orange to a radiant glow.

6

Accumulated knowledge of automotive and art history may have trained Buwalda’s discerning eye, but insight into universal truths about the human condition marks the vision of a true auteur. “The cars are our vehicles of a promise. One of destiny and ownership. One of freedom to explore and progress,” the artist explains. “These are ideas ingrained into Americans. Like the ‘promised land’ with Moses. It brings up questions of how the American Dream can work or fall apart.”

Ever since its invention enabled average citizens to efficiently traverse the continent’s vast expanses, granting the unprecedented access to truly tame its wild spaces and stake a direct claim of their Manifest Destiny, the automobile has embodied American ideals of freedom, independence and opportunity. The more widespread car ownership became, the more attainable these abstract aspirations became, materializing into concrete forms eventually individuated with distinctive qualities that turned a quotidian mode of transportation into a stylized means of personal expression.

Buwalda’s sharp focus penetrates the branded personas of each vehicle, revealing both the wishful self-image projected by its invisible owner and the subconscious reflection of unvarnished human nature. Yet he doesn’t stand in judgment, surveying each scene from an empathetic perspective that disarms resistance to trenchant observations. Attempts to manage messaging are confounded as signals shifting due to fickle, often inexplicable forces.

The diminishing dominance of once-potent is epitomized by the poignant fate of a gamechanging hotrod obscured by untamed brush in Tecumseh / Hidden Tiger, conjuring a ghostly afterimage of the fierce feline that metamorphosed in commercials for the 1969 Pontiac GTO. Even while shining a stark light on the stasis of survivors idling on the blacktops and grassy patches of Neighborhood Projects, Buwalda treats the steely veterans with dignity, honoring decades of active service. Documenting circumstantial evidence of the American Dream with the principled discipline of street photographers like Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander, who preserved earlier views of automotive Americana, Buwalda doesn’t stage mise en scène or rearrange found objects, only adjusting the perspective and framing of tableau in situ.

In his Miami studio, Buwalda further directs the gaze with the nuanced adaptation of isolated stills into oil paint or watercolor. The chemistry among charismatic elements that initially attracts Buwalda may not materialize in the first screen-tests, stopping short of sparking inspiration.

7

Sometimes a magnetic sensation persists, pulling him back to the location in search of that elusive composition, retracing previously random steps for a second or third take under different lighting conditions and alternate parking positions.

If the march of time cannot be denied, nor can it be blamed for the premature abandonment of durable goods. Purposeful Obsolescence attests to the lasting effects of a now-ubiquitous business strategy that General Motors was early to adopt, introducing novel features or superficial updates every year to generate demand for its latest model and dissatisfaction with previous versions. The incessant repackaging and reselling of the dream ultimately devalues it, observes Buwalda, illustrating the titular phenomenon with an emblematically sidelined ‘70s sedan, its Chevrolet insignia exposed by fraying fabric.

He handles with care the torn edges and desultory draping of slipcovers particularly abundant in the Sunshine State, where garages seem an unnecessary waste of precious space to homeowners squeezed by mortgage rates outpacing stagnant wages. Deft strokes relay the signals sent through these prosaic shields, articulating a range of aims decreed by the artist: “One, they protect a prized item of worth to the individual. Two, they cover the shame of degradation. Three, they keep secret a process of work, to car and self.”

Delusions can linger in car bodies long bereft of drivers, as displayed by a pair of dilapidated sedans slumped side-by-side in a used car lot like stray animals at the pound. The plaintive tone of a sales pitch inscribed across one windshield, “FOR SALE – RARE,” is underscored

by Buwalda’s title, Devoid of All Meaning Except Self-worth. Clinging to bygone celebrity status and hopeless fantasies of staging a comeback like the legendary grande dame Norma Desmond in the film noir classic Sunset Boulevard, this rusting relic punctuates the cultural commentary of Neighborhood Projects with an elegiac coda for the inevitable displacement of car culture and fading glory of the American Dream.

MARGERY GORDON is an independent art critic, journalist and educator based in Miami, specializing in coverage of contemporary

and modern art, photography, design and cultural affairs. Over the last 25 years, she has written and edited texts for a range of print and digital publications, exhibition catalogues and international magazines, including Art + Auction, ArtNews, ArtInfo.com, Art OnCuba and the official Art Basel Miami Beach Magazine. As the Founder/Director and Principal Guide of Arts Encounters, Gordon curates group tours of cultural venues throughout South Florida and beyond, partnering with nonprofit organizations, art and design districts, institutions and galleries to develop educational programming. A former instructor at Barry University, she holds a masters’ degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

8

Two Weeks Notice, 2017 oil on canvas 40 x 52 inches

9

10

Still Life with Brown Paper Bag, 2018 oil on canvas 72 x 44 inches 11

The Sunshine State / Those Florida Boys, 2018 oil on canvas 96 x 64 inches 12

13

14

15

Revelations / Mark of the Beast, 2018 oil on canvas 96 x 72 inches 16

17

18

Devoid of All Meaning Except Self-worth, 2018 oil on canvas 72 x 103 inches 19

Into the Sun / Burn, 2018 oil on canvas 64.5 x 96 inches

20

21

22

Purposeful Obsolescence, 2018 oil on canvas 36 x 48 inches

23

24

25

26

The artist in his studio, painting Tecumseh / Hidden Tiger, 2019

Tecumseh / Hidden Tiger, 2019 oil on canvas 72 x 96 inches (work in progress)

27

Beached, 2017 oil on canvas 60 x 84 inches

28

29

30

Vader, 2011 watercolor on paper 9 x 12 inches

31

TIM BUWALDA B. 1975 EDUCATION New World School of the Arts, BFA (Highest Honors), Miami, FL University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, TN SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2018 Neighborhood Projects, LnS Gallery, Miami, FL 2014 Buwalda’s Body Shop, North Miami Avenue, Miami, FL 2013 The Modern Prometheus, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2018 Highlights, LnS Gallery, Miami, FL Oolite, LnS Gallery, Miami, FL 2017 Collective Debut, LnS Gallery, Miami, FL 2015 No Commission: The Dean Collection, Miami, FL 2015 Alternative Contemporaneity: TAZ, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL Buwalda’s Motors Installation, Art Wynwood Ernst-Hilger booth, Miami, FL 2013 NADA Art Fair, Locust Projects booth, Miami, FL 2012 New World School of the Arts Faculty Show, Miami, FL ArtSeen, residency (Also in 2007-2011) 2011 Vanishing Points, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL Summertime Blues, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL Young Blood, Flagler Art Space, Miami, FL 2010 Pursuit, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL Pursuit, Pulse Art Fair, Locust Projects Booth, Miami, FL Drive, David Klein Gallery, Detroit, MI Florida Contemporary, Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL Time + Temp Surveying (the shifting climate of painting in South Florida), Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Hollywood, FL Boy oh Boy, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL 2009 SMALL, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL Dislocation, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL 2007 False Start, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL Confluence, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL Seinfeld, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL Fear, Fate, Fame (BFA show), Freedom Tower, Miami, FL Gray Paradise, Project Room, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL 2006 Rising Stars, New World Gallery, Miami, FL Passages, New World Gallery, Miami, FL 32

Photo of Tim Buwalda

SELECTED COLLECTIONS ICA, Miami, permanent collection, 2018 Perez Art Museum, Miami, permanent collection, 2012 New World School of the Arts, permanent collection, 2010 Alvaro Martinez, private collection, 2010 Jonathan Novak, private collection, 2009 Dennis and Debra Scholl, private collection, 2008 Michael and Lisa Schwietzer, private collection, 2007

SELECTED ART FAIRS Texas Contemporary Art Fair, Houston, TX, 2012 Art Basel, Miami Beach, FL, 2007-2012 Armory Show, New York, NY, 2007-2011 Art LA, Los Angeles, CA, 2009-2011 Art Pulse, Locust Projects solo show, 2011

The Artist in his studio

33