Cy Gavin

Cy Gavin,David Zwirner

An exhibition of new paintings by American artist Cy Gavin.

Gavin’s monumental paintings feature potent landscapes that serve as conduits for larger themes, including race, memory, and the possibilities of the medium of painting itself. Composed of acrylic and oil and, at times, incorporating a range of unconventional materials, the complex surfaces of these canvases bring together the personal and the collective, powerfully joining points connected to Gavin’s own Afro-Caribbean ancestry and American upbringing as well as contested histories in places that he has lived and travelled.

Made during the period of lockdown and civil unrest in America, the paintings in this exhibition largely depict Gavin’s immediate surroundings and his property in upstate New York. For the artist, the natural world provided an apt analogue for the transitory and unsettled atmosphere in the country as he was grappling with these issues. Barren trees, a failed man-made dam reinvigorated by beavers, invasive flowers, and an artificial island insinuate notions of boundaries and succession that are also mirrored in the formal qualities of Gavin’s paintings with their densely worked, tactile surfaces and shallow illusionistic space, at once inviting and withholding to the viewer.

Duration 23 November 2021 - 23 December 2021
Times Tues 10am-6pm Wed-Sat 10am-6pm
Cost Free
Venue David Zwirner
Address 24 Grafton Street, London, W1S 4EZ
Contact / natasha@davidzwirner.com / www.davidzwirner.com

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