Future Fair, New York
T.L. Solien
September 10 – 12, 2021
T.L. Solien is a balloon twister of a painter - instead of latex bags making animal after animal in quick succession. He repeatedly paints, creating portrait after portrait. You can put the works we display at the Fair into twocamps, Darker and Brighter, Rendered and Scattered. The results in Part One and Part Two have their own setof challenges and skills. Depending on the moment's needs, he might quickly move between both camps ormultiple approaches, or they might even incorporate the odd additional techniques. These recent works haveevolved to include a range of very complex moves. In addition, a highly specialized language has emerged todescribe the processes involved and their resulting creations. To distill his work into only two groups is almost impossible. Still, this introductory presentation with the gallery gives us the chance to be generous and succinct in telling part of the story.
"I've always wanted my paintings to be 'confrontational,' to make the subject of the painting, ultimately, the viewer's psychological relationship with the painting being viewed. Most recently, the color has become much more intense, almost day-glow on occasion, as I try to amp up the visual presence of the paintings to compete most effectively with all of the other visual distractions we face in our lives daily," he says. "This battle for the viewer's attention becomes more and more difficult to win as time goes by, and we are challenged by the vast volume of images that pass in front of us each minute, hour, and day, and at a velocity never possible in previous communication technologies. At times it feels like being in a gunfight with a pea shooter, while your opponent is packing lasers of death."
