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PRESS RELEASE
David Bates
Recent Paintings, Wood Reliefs, and Sculpture
October 13 through November 11, 2000
Dunn and Brown is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent work by David Bates. This exhibition includes monumental wood reliefs, paintings, and sculpture created over the past year. While much has been discussed regarding Bates’ choice of subject matter and his passion for specific motifs, it is perhaps the formal aspects of his work that are most captivating. When reflecting on Bates’ career thus far, one is impressed by his endless desire to depict his subjects in an ever-changing style. This insatiable need to experiment with a range of materials and techniques while exploring the underlying formal issues of art-making has defined his work for the last several years.
Bates' fusion of painting and sculpture in individual works is most evident in our current exhibition, as is Bates’ never-ending desire to push beyond the boundaries of any given medium. In his most recent body of work, Bates has created the most technically complex wood reliefs of his career alongside paintings profoundly influenced by the formal issues of his sculpture. In each of the seven massive wood reliefs, Bates stacks and layers materials in complicated arrangements, thereby presenting an illusion and engaging the viewer with the question of what is real and what is perceived. Wood reliefs such as Gladiolas and Forsythia involve an incredibly intricate network of wood, cut and applied to the surface of each composition, while larger blocks of wood in Sunflowers in a Vase and Tulips challenge the viewer’s sense of depth, space, and perception.
As Bates embraces the technical challenges of the wood reliefs, he simultaneously adopts a heavily painted surface in much of his work for the first time since the early 1990s. Paint is applied in handfuls to Jan Lee in a Black Chair II, as well as to White Roses and Sunflowers V. Painting has reemerged with the greatest importance it has had since Bates’ first trips to Walla Walla. His focus has turned to the qualities of paint handling and process, yielding more aggressive and even more abstract works. Passages of abstraction that have been present in his works for years receive significantly more attention in Lantern Fishing II and Red Tulips as well as in every other work in this exhibition.
A native of Dallas, David Bates is undeniably one of Texas' most acclaimed artists. Early in his career, Bates’ paintings were shown in major museum exhibitions of contemporary American art, organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. In 1987, his work was included in the prestigious Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and in 1988, Bates was honored with a traveling exhibition organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. His paintings and sculpture have been acquired by museums across the country, including the Dallas Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
David Bates will be present at the opening reception on Friday, October 13. Dunn and Brown Contemporary is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 until 5:00 and by appointment.
A catalogue of the exhibition and images of works in the exhibition are available upon request.