Gabe Pionkowski
to
Monroe Arts Center, Monroe 1315 11th St., Monroe, Wisconsin 53566
courtesy Monroe Arts Center
Artist Gabe Pionkowski.
press release: The artwork of contemporary American painter Gabe Pionkowski will be on exhibit in the Monroe Arts Center’s Wellington and Muranyi Galleries from January 29, 2021, through April 9, 2021. Pionkowski is a visual artist based in Madison.
GALLERY VIEWING GUIDELINES: The galleries are open by appointment only to groups of six persons or less. Call 608-325-5700 to schedule a time to visit the Gallery. Appointments to tour the galleries are available: Tuesday - Friday from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
- Upon entering MAC, guests will be greeted by the Gallery Director and will be asked to sanitize their hands and will be given a mask to wear (if they do not already have one). Masks will be required to be worn when visiting the Monroe Arts Center.
- Temperature and medical screenings will be performed on all guests. Visitors with a temperature of over 100.4 or who are experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19, along with their group, will be asked to reschedule their visit after 14 days.
- The Gallery Director will direct guests on how to access the exhibit. Guest will have 30 minutes to tour the exhibit. All other parts of the building will be closed.
- All touchpoints will be cleaned thoroughly between appointments.
Pionkowski earned his MFA and MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a BA in Art Education from Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, after studying in Italy at the Florence University of the Arts. Pionkowski has been awarded residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the Millay Colony of the Arts in Austerlitz, New York. He was a Milton and Sally Avery Endowed Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2016.
Explaining his art, Pionkowski states, “My paintings are made by deconstructing canvas thread by thread, hand painting each thread, and reconstructing them on a traditional handloom. The majority of the work presented in this exhibition has focused on painting back onto the newly constituted plane. These marks divide the surface laterally and penetrate to mark the backside. In an attempt to bring forward what has sank, the canvas is cut, each strip folded along a central axis, and woven into itself. The result are paintings that holds themselves in a precarious state between the initial subject and that which, although constituted as itself is also beyond; between certainty and uncertainty, unison and chaos.
The central question driving my process is something like “how to paint nothing?” Over many years this question has led me to directly engage with the subjectile (the canvas; theoretically, that which allows painting to be visible). It is an attempt to create a process that touches this “void”. Although, at times, the paintings are very full, I strive for the process to constantly double back on itself allowing the paintings to declare themselves as an entity whose primary function is engaging in a constant play of hide and seek. I also think about how the figure plays within trace of my paintings (deconstruction, reconstruction, marks, cuts, folds). Recently, I have been extending this play to the viewer by using other materials and, or, presentation techniques. For example, “Fall Into Me” utilizes blind nails to create the suggestion of a meditative bed. “In The Act” brings the painting off the wall, allowing the viewer to traverse the recto and verso. The most recent painting “/chiaroscuro/“is a very dim journey into “infinity”.”
This Exhibit has been supported by MAC Corporate Underwriter Colony Brands, Inc. and Season Media Underwriter Big Radio, with additional support from Mike and Shelley Muranyi, Paul and Sue Barrett, David and Julie Buchanan, Gof and Mary Thomson, Pete Guenther and Barb Woodriff, Don Amphlett and Jan Johnson, David and Janeen Babler, and Chuck and Chris Wellington.