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PAST EXHIBITION
David Bates: The Storm
February 29, 2008—May 24, 2008
Press Release
Dunn and Brown Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening of the much anticipated exhibition The Storm, a series of new paintings based on the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina, by acclaimed Texas-based artist David Bates. David Bates: The Storm will open with a reception on Friday, February 29 from 6:00 - 8:00 PM and continue through Saturday, April 12. David Bates will be present for the opening.
The Storm, a legendary recapturing of this wide-spread devastating event, will include a range of small and large oil on canvas, as well as a grouping of watercolor and charcoal works on paper. A majority of the paintings consist solely of human faces, stripped down to powerful expressions of grief, sadness, anger, and frustration. Through the anguish in their eyes, the individuals that Bates portrays are overcome with grief for their jobs, their homes, and especially their city. With such profound emotion, David Bates brings to life the emotional tole on the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
Accompanying The Storm is a full-color catalogue featuring an essay by curator and contemporary professor Daniel Siedell. An excerpt from this essay reveals the motivation and process of the artist when creating this series.
It was this urgent sense that something was passing away—that it would never be the same—that struck Bates while he watched the horror of Hurricane Katrina embodied by those poor souls whose lives were destroyed. New Orleans was an important place for Bates. He traveled there often as a young man to visit friends, frequent blues festivals, and attend Mardi Gras. And now it was gone, its existence confined to his memories. New Orleans is still there. But it will never be the same.
But what struck Bates more than his own loss, were the unbelievable stories of those victims he watched on television: the incredible fight for survival, the absurdly tragic stories, the sadness, the human loss. As they told their stories, he knew that they and their stories would soon be forgotten. And, as he has said elsewhere, “without our memories, what do we have?” Even memories of grief assert and preserve the integrity of the individual. And even if these memories are tragic, the faces that speak them, that live them, nonetheless deserve to be preserved if nothing else as a means to preserve the dignity of their humanity.
And so Bates set to work, sketching the portraits of those victims whose stories were being told on television.
A native of Dallas, David Bates is undeniably one of Texas’ most celebrated artists. Bates attended Southern Methodist University and earned a B.F.A. in 1975 followed by an M.F.A. in 1978. Shortly after completing graduate school, Bates received across the country exhibiting in museums including 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 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; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Lincoln, Nebraska, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, Texas, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
In 2007 the Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth, in associatiation with Scala Publishers, published a comprehensive monograph entitled “David Bates,” which includes over one hundred full-color illustrations of Bates’ works on paper, paintings, and sculpture from his thirty-year career. Dunn and Brown Contemporary is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 am until 5:00 pm and by appointment. Please contact Sarah Stork at the gallery or via e-mail at sstork@dunnandbrown.com for additional information or to request visuals and a catalogue of the exhibition.
© 2007 DUNN AND BROWN CONTEMPORARY 5020 Tracy Street Dallas TX 75205 214-521-4322 FAX 214-521-4028 |
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