Goblin Fanfare

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Inclined to repetition as the principal method of his process, Shannon Peel is relying on momentum and its subconscious and spontaneous nature to foster his painterly practice. Allowing for recurring elements to echo through the paintings, such an approach creates a sense of continuation and coherence through ongoing alternation, evolvement, and refinement. Equally pronounced and deceptive, the works comprising Goblin Fanfare are celebrating the establishment of the flow, form, space, and color, through perpetual self- quotation and technical improvisation.

The particularity of Peel’s studio work has been directly conditioned by the unique path that led him to painting. After spending the majority of his life drawing daily for a job, the Australian-born and Brooklyn-based artist approached the painting easel with admirable confidence and refined curiosity. Drawing straight onto the canvas and resolving the quandaries by spontaneously trying out things, the classical tropes are used as vessels to refine the style. Spellbound by the possibilities of oil as a medium and painting as a language, the long-established cast of concepts, shapes, and characters are employed as templates for this exhaustive survey. The constant revision and refinement continuously abstracts and transforms the archetypal formats while also utilizing the vintage freshness of subdued tones picked outside the traditional color palette. And although employing the layered textures built with the thinnest traces of pigment, the scraped, scratched, dirty, and broken-down textures are in fact bringing out the muted and seemingly discordant colors. This fanatical focus on textures and surfaces stems from years of working in the streets, the need to consider the existing elements, and the appreciation for their effect on the finished work.

On the other hand, the washed-out and absorbed color fields, mere evidence of life once existing on the canvas are in strong contrast with the resolute and brisk linework. Linework that is the core of the process and which is generously giving way to the other aspects of work with each new iteration of a particular image. In the end, hyper-stylized and heavily polished elements stemming from graffiti language are bastardized into “psychedelic optimism” aesthetics by clashing them against painterly tradition. Such “happy accidents” are the precious moments of confident balance between technique and emotion, and are the thriving moments for Peel’s proliferative practice. – Saša Bogojev

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Shannon Peel (born 1971) is a contemporary artist born in Sydney, Australia living and working in NYC since 2007. Shannon had a long and established career both on the streets internationally as a graffiti writer and as an art director and designer in the fashion industry. Shannon has shown and exhibited periodically throughout this career successfully and is now excited to focus permanently on his career as a painter.
Shannon’s work is self-described as “psychedelic optimism”, exploring form, flow, color and space. Applying a spontaneous immediacy to drawing allows for the happy accidents that become the confident balance of technique and emotion. An innate sense of color stems from 30 years of art on the streets and an energy that reflects this ephemeral and often semi-permanent environment.

Born in Croatia (Rijeka, 1978) Sasha Bogojev lives and works in the Netherlands. Over the years he has collaborated in various international publications and media and is especially known for his curatorial work and a long-term relationship with Juxtapoz magazine, where he has been contributing editor and European correspondent for many years.
Since 2016, Bogojev started curating exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world. Highlights include “Lost In A Spectacle”, WOAW Gallery, Beijing (2022); “Domesticity”, Volery Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2021); “Shape Of An Image”, WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong (2021); “8th Ply”, The Garage, Amsterdam (2020); “Melancholympics”, The Wunderwall, Antwerp, Belgium (2020); “ME”, High Line Nine, New York (2020); Julio Anaya Cabanding’s solo show “Unstolen, Tales Of Arte, Imola, Italy (2019); “The Distance Between”, BC Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2019); “New Classics”, Galerie COA, Montreal (2019); Mike Lee’s solo show “Happier Together”, Amala Gallery, Tokyo (2017), and four iterations of his ongoing “Universes” series held in Imola, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Paris, and New York.