Flames, Semiose, Paris
May 26 - June 13, 2020
Semiose is pleased to welcome in its project space on rue Chapon a collection of works by Anthony Cudahy, an American painter born in 1989 and exhibited for the first time in France.
The series brings together under the exhibition title “Flames” a dozen acrylic paintings on paper. Flames as in “return of flame” – an allusion to the language of love – or because these small paintings are like incandescent coals, their vivid contrasts igniting the colors in the shadows. Flame , finally, as the title of several works in the series, notably a profile portrait with a candle.
Anthony Cudahy hybridizes very diverse references in his painting: masterpieces of European art – Caravaggio, Brueghel, the Apocalypse Tapestry of Angers, Pompeian mosaics and frescoes, etc. –, queer archives , gay iconography, personal and family stories. Inspired by photographs found or taken by him or his partner, Cudahy incorporates the images into a chain of transformations, which he recharges with affects and thoughts. He explains: “The history of images is what interests me. The transformation and degradation to which an image is subjected through reproduction creates a language in itself, with its codes and signifiers. It can be just as much the pixelation of an image repeated endlessly on the Internet as the shadow cast by a photographic flash transposed into a painting. When I appropriate an image and translate it into painting, it is both a resumption and an interpretation. Painting is a new link in this chain, another layer in the story of an image. Translation results from my mind being excited by the image; painting is a recording of thoughts. 1 »
Flowers, entwined couples, loving attitudes, portraits of ephebes, her repertoire explores the registers of the romantic, tenderness and intimacy. Her group compositions, where gestures and glances circulate, inside the painting but also outside, make networks of friendships and intrigues particularly palpable, like Between stare (2019), where the central character turns away from the trio to gaze at the camera. Silent, as if introverted, Cudahy's painting proceeds from a dramaturgy, each image describing an often elusive scene; Conveyor (2019), for example, maintains an uncertainty about the place and the action. In general, the climate of the paintings is charged with latent gravity; such tension thus runs through Snake bundle I & II (2019) and its incredible and repulsive motif of a tangle of snakes swarming in hands.
Cudahy shares with his former mentor Bill Sullivan, whose assistant he was, a passion for portraiture. At the center of complex compositions, captured in ambiguous situations and narrative ruptures, the human figure emerges as the focal point. The search for individualization is rendered by the delicate drawing of faces and expressions, while the body or the environment are brushed energetically, in large abstract flat tints. Chromatic aberrations and acid color ruptures – also very popular with European avant-gardes such as the Nabis or Die Brücke – create an imbalance and unite seemingly irreconcilable contradictions. In the “Flames” series, in order to give primacy to drawing, contrasts are often reduced to two colors, sometimes enhanced with a black line. Lively and concentrated, the paintings in this series go straight to the point, each of the images fixing a striking idea, but whose resonance wave remains suspended.
Born in Florida in 1989, Anthony Cudahy lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Pratt Institute in New York in 2011 and enrolled at Hunter College in 2020. Active in various collectives and a prolific author of artist books, he co-directs a publishing project called “Slow Youth” and regularly organizes group projects. He has participated in numerous exhibitions throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, including 1969 Gallery (New York), Java Project (New York), Farewell Books (Austin, Texas), and Mumbo's Outfit (New York). His work has been included in group exhibitions in New York at Galerie Perrotin, Danese/Corey, MULHERIN, Practice, Hales Gallery, and the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, Georgia, among others. His work has been featured in and published in several magazines, including Mossless , The Paris Review , Hello Mr. , Marco Polo Quarterly , and Cakeboy .
Bruegel harvester with moon, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inSnake bundle II, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inVilla of the mysteries (pink), 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 in
Pompeii tile IV, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inConveyor, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inLurker between branches, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inGreen stare, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inchesFlame, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inShaded, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inFlame reflection, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inBetween stare, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inSnake bundle, 2019
Acrylic on paper
26 6/8 × 20 7/8 inDoubled beach, 2019
Ink on paper
22 x 15 in