Don Christensen: Parallel Lines | Harper's Apartment
Harper's Apartment
51 East 74th Street
Apt #2X (red buzzer)
New York, NY 10021
Harper’s Books is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of abstract painting and assemblages by Don Christensen. Spanning a period of twenty years, the work will highlight Christensen’s versatile approach in negotiating the compelling relationships between color and form, line and shape, surface and depth. The show opens on February 16 at Harper's Apartment with a reception attended by the artist, and will overlap with Harper’s Books first NADA participation, March 2-5, where Christensen’s work will be presented alongside new paintings by Sadie Laska.
Christensen’s vibrant and optically dynamic paintings burst with energy and movement. Many read like schematics written in a private language whose cadence encompasses a wide range of hues, loosely structured through geometric configurations. These visually kinetic pieces poetically map out a synthesized topography of pure rhythm and abstracted sound. Not unlike the dreamy acoustics of polyrhythmic percussion, his work silently pulses while resting simultaneously in a trance of meditative stillness.
A variety of mediums and processes are hallmarks of Christensen's practice. In his wood block painting series, begun in the nineties, Christensen constructed assemblages by connecting pieces of found wood into rectangular patchwork creations. Bright and pastel pigments were brushed or sprayed on each block’s face, visualizing a flowing checkered effect. Taking a more minimal approach in his later works on canvas, Christensen evenly applies layers of acrylic paint, creating voluminous, trapezoidal shapes on flat, colorful backgrounds. The most recent pieces return to the use of found wood to create rough surfaces for the picture plane. An abiding interest in the craft, color relationships, and geometry that guide the paintings unites his entire oeuvre.
Born in Nebraska in 1948, Christensen draws influence from a lifetime of unique experiences as an active participant in the worlds of music and visual arts. During the 1970s, he day-jobbed in the studios of artists Kenneth Noland, Larry Poons and Jules Olitski while also playing drums in formative No Wave bands and projects such as The Bush Tetras, The Contortions, The Raybeats, The Philip Glass Ensemble, and on Brian Eno's “No New York” album. In 1986, Christensen was drawn back to Nebraska, where fate and chance brought him to the lifework of Emery Blagdon, an eccentric farmer turned outsider-artist. Upon Blagdon’s death, Christensen helped take stewardship of the artist's “Healing Machines”; a series of electro-magnetic conducting metallic sculptures, now held in several museums. The Healing Machines also provoked Christensen to fully embrace visual art. Over the course of the following 25 years, he developed into a prolific painter, drawing influence from color field painters and the mystical geometric boogie of Mondrian. He lives and works out of Springs, New York.
Exhibitions
- June 26, 2021 - July 21, 2021
Potent - June 26, 2021 - July 21, 2021
Nicasio Fernandez: Within and Without - June 26, 2021 - July 21, 2021
Frederic Tuten: Works on Cardboard - June 10, 2021 - July 10, 2021
Ryan Wilde: Venus Su Misura - May 13, 2021 - June 26, 2021
Austyn Weiner: Morning Wood - May 22, 2021 - June 23, 2021
36 Paintings - May 29, 2021 - June 23, 2021
Matthew King: Paintings on Aluminum - May 6, 2021 - June 5, 2021
Dan Flanagan: Everything Is a Lot of Things - April 10, 2021 - May 16, 2021
JJ Manford: View From Gowanus - April 8, 2021 - May 8, 2021
Ho Jae Kim: Butterfly Dream - April 1, 2021 - May 1, 2021
Joani Tremblay: The whole time, the sun - February 18, 2021 - March 26, 2021
Scott Kahn: Afternoon of a Faun - see all exhibitions