It Was Dark in His Arms, with Ian Lewandowski and Kenny Gardner, Deli Gallery, New York, NY
March 26 – May 9, 2021
Deli Gallery is pleased to present It Was Dark In His Arms, a two-person exhibition featuring new work by Anthony Cudahy and Ian Lewandowski, alongside archival photography by the late Kenny Gardner (1913–2002). As a married couple Cudahy and Lewandowski's practices are intrinsically woven together, it is difficult to know where their shared influence begins and ends. Both are invested in consideration of an image's source and follow its spark of inspiration intuitively. Although working in different mediums, their reverence of and attention to photography is a foundational aspect of their work. Once exposed to Gardner's archival photographs and Lewandowski taking over the archivist role, elements of Gardner's photos began to wedge themselves into both artist's minds.
With an impressive archive spanning over five decades, Gardner, Cudahy's great-uncle by marriage, was a singer in The Royal Canadians and an unofficial photographer for the band. Also known as the photographer of the family, seemingly having a camera on him at all times, Gardner's vernacular photographs reveal his technical skill and his ability to capture deeply detailed moments showing the lives and emotions of the people surrounding him. Though his photographs had sat waiting for years, two artists are now closely engaged in conversation with them.
Throughout his painting practice, Cudahy has utilized archival imagery. He is interested in the mystery and alienating closeness of not knowing the entire context of a scenario, even if he knows the photographs' subjects personally. For Cudahy, Gardner's photographs make up an expansive image world that encourages collaboration. Fixating on Gardner's eye and what interested him within the composition, the artist finds small moments, details, and gestures that spur a narrative or color idea. While reconsidering the past with a new perspective, Cudahy's process is a non-objective and insular process, trusting his impulses that may be considered queer—romantic brushstrokes and emotional color—and not self-censoring them.
Two of the paintings in this show feature figures that are compositionally framed by other figures, which can be found in Gardner's photos. For example, in the large-scale piece, across the room between, 2020, the central figure's seductive gaze bewitches the viewer, blurring the distinction between voyeur and spectator. As an intimate crop from Gardner's Arabian Nights, 1954, the painting lends fewer clues to the context but breathes a new life and narrative into the subjects, drawing in the viewer with each newfound detail.
Lewandowski's photography practice borders on the edge of traditional portraiture while simultaneously directly defying that history. The artist uses a view camera to compose his portraits because of its inherent slowness, giving space for contemplation and allowing careful attention to his subjects. Becoming Gardner's archivist allowed Lewandowski the chance to closely examine each one of his photographs. The artist feels a unique and special feature of the medium is the tendency toward observation, the ability to retain some kind of vantage point from which to make photographs while still holding an active participatory role. In looking at these images, the artist can see Gardner's decision-making, engaging with subjects, his moments of shyness, confidence, and obsessing, which Lewandowski can relate to in his own work.
The people in Lewandowski's photographs aren't meant to look natural or even like themselves, appreciating every part of the very exacting and painstaking process while displaying a tenderness that reveals an intimacy between subject and photographer. This emphasis on technique and the construction of a photograph feeds into the often deliberately awkward posturing of Ian's subjects, their expressions fixed and their bodies not entirely at ease.
Through channelling Gardner's archival imagery and upholding his legacy, both Cudahy and Lewandowski blur the boundaries of photography and painting. In this process, the intimacy of an image becomes indistinguishable from the real and represented.
across the room between, 2020
Oil on canvas
60 × 32 incheselaine in the light, 2021
Oil and acrylic on canvas
36 × 35 inchesyellow gaze, 2021
Oil on canvas
14 × 11 inchessunset, 2020
Oil on canvas
48 × 36 inchestwo in conversation, 2021
Oil on canvas
14 × 11 inchesnightwalk, 2021
Colored pencil on paper
30 × 22 inchesred gaze, 2021
Oil and acrylic on canvas
14 × 11 inches