Born and raised in Manhattan Lower East Side, Reuben Gordon applies virtuosically skillful finesse to paintings that feature scenes of daily urban life evocatively specific to, and imbued with, the spirit and ethos of their setting: overpass graffiti tags, billboards, and street signs, alongside stolen episodes of the day-to-day that capture the meaning of being young in the city: bar and apartment parties, sports games, dizzy car rides, and sneaky kisses.
Bridging the case between photorealism and expressionism, the crisp immediacy of line and palette characteristic of Gordon’s canvases belie the depth of meticulous technique and attention to detail that goes into the process of these works’ creation. The paintings begin their lives as film camera photos, spontaneously snapped by the artist at opportune moments of daily life. Back at the studio, they are fastidiously transferred onto canvas through a highly skilled and thoughtful technique that involves printing the original images and suspending them alongside empty canvas, then using precise measurement and mathematical calculations to replicate the foundational scenes in freehand and paint. With that original outline in place, the artist then departs from the point of direct reference and allows his own emotional state and personal narrative to dictate the coloring and the expressive gestures of the final paintings. In this way, his decisively contemporary scenes speak the language of Desus & Mero through the idiom of Arshile Gorky and Richard Estes.
Gordon’s recent move to Los Angeles is reflected in the renewed intensity of hue and a sense of abstraction. This relocation of the artist’s daily visual matrix from the muted urban density of New York City to the open vistas and sun-burned colors of Southern California has prompted Gordon to delve even deeper into the exploration of Manhattan’s (and occasionally Brooklyn’s) streets and characters. “The landscape of the Lower East Side, the East Village, and Brooklyn, and the fun-loving people I grew up with there”, he observes, “formed my internal architecture, as did the special kind of melancholy that exists in the desire for a colorful life.” Now removed from the immediate access to that setting, the artist has found a capacity for a renewed fervency of color and abstraction in which he bathes his latest landscapes.
As Gordon himself has summed up this process, it is “trying to expel a nameless energy onto a canvas, in longing, hoping that your expressions relate to the universal, even though they come from an individual in solitude. This longing, and exteriorizing the unconscious, results in an anxious explosion of beauty that is objective and plastic at one and the same time”.
The artist lives and works in Los Angeles.
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Reuben GordonThe Willy-B, No. 3, 2021Oil on canvas44 x 66 in
111.8 x 167.6 cm -
Reuben GordonThe Willy-B, No. 4, 2021Oil on canvas48 x 72 in
121.9 x 182.9 cm -
Reuben Gordon6th and C (Loisaida Ave), 2021Oil on canvas64 x 96 in
162.6 x 243.8 cm -
Reuben GordonOrchard, 2021Oil on canvas55 x 83 in
139.7 x 210.8 cm -
Reuben GordonThe Willy-B, No. 2: Rejuvenation, 2020Oil on canvas49 x 72 in
124.5 x 182.9 cm -
Reuben GordonSquinters, 2021Oil on canvas48 x 72 in
121.9 x 182.9 cm -
Reuben GordonLafayette, 2021Oil on canvas24 x 36 in
61 x 91.4 cm -
Reuben GordonB and 10th (Charlie Parker Place), 2021Oil on canvas33 x 22 in
83.8 x 55.9 cm -
Reuben GordonBowery I, 2021Oil on canvas42 x 58 in
106.7 x 147.3 cm -
Reuben GordonBowery II, 2021Oil on canvas40 1/2 x 60 in
102.9 x 152.4 cm -
Reuben GordonFather's Day, 2020Oil on canvas24 x 36 in
61 x 91.4 cm -
Reuben GordonHey... go fuck yaself, 2020Oil and pastel on canvas36 x 24 in
91.4 x 61 cm -
Reuben GordonThe Willy B (View of the Lower East Side), 2020Oil on canvas48 x 72 in
121.9 x 182.9 cm -
Reuben Gordon4, 5, 6, 2020Oil on canvas48 x 72 in
121.9 x 182.9 cm -
Reuben GordonSunset and Lucille, 2018Oil on canvas40 x 27 in
101.6 x 68.6 cm -
Reuben GordonRefugio, 2019Oil on canvas32 x 48 in
81.3 x 121.9 cm -
Reuben GordonForsyth and Houston, 2019Oil on canvas48 x 72 in
121.9 x 182.9 cm -
Reuben GordonThe Smooch, 2020Oil on canvas34 x 51 in
86.4 x 129.5 cm -
Reuben GordonThe Chronicles of Cocko, 2019Oil on canvas48 x 72 in
121.9 x 182.9 cm -
Reuben GordonInfielders, 2018Oil on canvas16 x 20 in
40.6 x 50.8 cm -
Reuben GordonLive mas, 2020Oil and pastel on canvas24 x 36 in
61 x 91.4 cm
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Reuben Gordon
New Paintings 16 Oct - 27 Nov 2021Baert Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by the Los Angeles-based artist Reuben Gordon. This will be the artist’s first solo presentation at the gallery. We...Read more -
SUMMER GROUP EXHIBITION
Melinda Braathen, Paolo Colombo, Pam Evelyn, Reuben Gordon, Iliodora Margellos, Francesca Mollett, Jebila Okongwu and Sophie Wahlquist 24 Jul - 18 Sep 2021Baert Gallery is pleased to present a Summer Group Exhibition featuring Melinda Braathen, Paolo Colombo, Pam Evelyn, Reuben Gordon, Iliodora Margellos, Francesca Mollett, Jebila Okongwu and Sophie Wahlquist. This group...Read more -
UNTITLED, ART MIAMI BEACH OVR 2020 | IRL
Melinda Braathen, Reuben Gordon, Sophie Wahlquist 30 Nov - 12 Dec 2020On the occasion of UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach OVR 2020, Baert Gallery is pleased to present new works by Melinda Braathen, Reuben Gordon and Sophie Wahquist IRL from November 30...Read more -
Works on Paper
Melinda Braathen, Paolo Colombo, Francesca Gabbiani, Reuben Gordon, Dene Leigh, Daniel Silva, Sophie Wahlquist 8 Feb - 28 Mar 2020Baert gallery is pleased to present Works on Paper, a group exhibition featuring Melinda Braathen, Paolo Colombo, Francesca Gabbiani, Reuben Gordon, Dene Leigh, Daniel Silva and Sophie Wahlquist. Encompassing a...Read more -
Color is an Act of Reason
Jasmin Blasco, Melinda Braathen, Francesca Gabbiani, Reuben Gordon, Amy MacKay, Iliodora Margellos, Jebila Okongwu 3 Aug - 14 Sep 2019Color is uncontainable. It effortlessly reveals the limits of language and evades our best attempts to impose a rational order on it... To work with color is to become acutely...Read more