CONTEXT Booth E31
2901 NE 1st Avenue | Miami, FL 33137
December 3 – 7, 2014 | 11am – 8pm, daily
VIP/Press Preview: December 2, 2014 | 5:30pm – 10pm
Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to announce its programming for CONTEXT in booth E31 featuring works by Brett Amory.
Amory’s paintings portray abstracted studies of urban life through fragmented cityscapes and anonymous, isolated figures. Based on photographs he has taken of ordinary city architecture, as well as people who he sees on a daily basis but never speaks to, the exhibited works are part of the ongoing series entitled Waiting. In conjunction with paintings from the Waiting series, Amory will create site-specific installations around two of the works and present a sampling of portraits from his Anonymous series.
As the title suggests, the Waiting series is about how we rarely experience living in the now, always awaiting what will come next. In our age of distraction, being in the present is difficult to achieve, it requires heightened cognitive awareness and clear mental space, often prevented by constant internal dialogue, preoccupation with memories of the past and/or concern for the future. Amory’s work attempts to visually represent this concept of disconnection and anticipation, conveying the idea of transient temporality that exists in most moments of our daily lives.
For Context, the exhibited works from Amory’s Waiting series will depict several locations in Miami. Jumbo’s, a 24-hour diner located in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood was the first Caucasian-owned restaurant to employ and serve African Americans. Operated by the Flam family since 1955, the artist was able document the establishment’s final night before permanently closing its doors on July 23, 2014. In Waiting #212, a brightly colored sign reading, “Jumbo’s”, reigns above the pitch-black night sky as a solitary, African American man enters the fluorescent lit diner. Additional locations include: Café Versailles, Club Deuce, La Sandwicherie, Overtown and Tobacco Road.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Brett Amory was born in 1975 in Chesapeake, Virginia and is currently based in Oakland, California. In 2005, Amory received a BFA from Academy of Arts University in San Francisco. Amory’s work has been exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and New York. In 2012, The San Francisco Bay Guardian named him artist of the year with a cover story. He has also been featured in publications such as The Huffington Post and New American Paintings. Amory’s forthcoming monograph will be released in the spring of 2015.
