(Rory Golden "Flowers for the God of Love" Series / Rory Golden "Flowers for the God of Love" Series /Rory Golden "Chickenbones" Series / Rory Golden "Chickenbones" Series)

Rory Golden: No Escape from Love

October 2 - 16, 2010 (OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, October2, 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm)

MARIETTA, GA, August 28, 2010 – Avisca Fine Art Gallery will present a groundbreaking exhibition of works by New York-based artist Rory Golden in his first solo exhibition in the Atlanta area. The exhibition “Rory Golden: No Escape from Love” will feature his enigmatic figurative narrative paintings of recent series, but will also include works from his earlier portrait series depicting black males. The exhibition will be on view at Avisca Fine Art Gallery from October 2 through October 16, 2010.
“Rory Golden is a powerfully articulate artist who takes on some highly charged issues and this exhibition may ruffle some feathers, especially here in the conservative South”, says Byrma Braham, director of Avisca Fine Art Gallery. “But as a gallery that seeks to be relevant, we have to push boundaries sometimes, as well as accommodate a range of voices and a diversity of expressions.”
Rory Golden creates multi-layered figurative work that deals in an unabashed and often provocative way with issues surrounding race, representation, sexual identity and desire. His work takes us to the deep end of our psychic pool where we navigate the psychologically complex and ambiguous waters of our lives, where erotic tension and sexual fantasy are ironically paired with their opposites: struggle and the potential for violence.

In his early work Golden achieved a metaphorical and allegorical engagement with recent history and incidents of violence motivated both by race and homophobia. In the work that forms the core of this exhibition, he pulls us deep into his psyche and into a tenebrous meditation on the dialectics of desire. Stereotypical conventions of racial representation in pornography are appropriated and abstracted to make his point. Nude black males set against a backdrop of macabre, mashed-up color field washings function both as the subjects of curious narratives and as a cultural screen onto which our fears and fantasies are projected.

“What Matisse was to well-kept, demure French women in the 1950’s, Golden is to the sexually seductive, inner-city black man, post-Obama,” says artist and writer Max Eternity, “-think Blue Nude, filtered through graffiti and urban decay. And whether intentional or not, much of art history’s recent discourse can be observed in his compositions; take for instance his placement of Chagal-esque, angelic, figural forms, floating weightlessly, consumed in sensuality and delight, all the while on a crash-course collision with the juvenile mockery, wit and vexation of Basquiat at his best.”

Rory Golden
Rory Golden has exhibited his work widely in solo and group shows at venues such as the New York and San Francisco Public Libraries and the Denver International Airport. Upcoming exhibits include a group show, “Ordinary Torture” at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, and Albion College in Michigan. He has received fellowships from Yaddo, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, the Blue Mountain Center and the National Academy of Fine Arts. Recent grants include an Idea Capital Grant, a Puffin Foundation Grant and a recent grant from Duke University Libraries Special Collections.
Golden holds an MFA in Book Arts from the University of Alabama and his work can be found in public and private collections across the country.

Avisca Fine Art Gallery
Avisca Fine Art Gallery is a contemporary fine art gallery specializing in artworks created by black artist in the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean. In addition to its particular focus, the gallery also strives to present a diverse range of artistic expressions and to serve the local art community by featuring local talent. Through its programs, exhibitions, educational activities and an extensive library of books on African American and Caribbean art, the gallery seeks to be a vital cultural resource and to contribute to the cultural enrichment of the Marietta community and the greater Atlanta area.
Content Advisory: This exhibition contains male nudity and explicit content

Rory Golden: No Escape from Love
October 2 - 16, 2010
(OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, October2, 6:00-10:00 PM)
Avisca Fine Art Gallery
507 Roswell Street, Marietta, GA 30060
T: 770.977.2732
www.aviscafineart.com
Gallery Hours: Thursday-Saturday 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm + by appointment/Admission: Free