Half Gallery New York is playing host to a new exhibition by acclaimed Canadian artist, Geoff McFetridge. In “Sleeping Shapes,” McFetridge brings his minimal and colorful aesthetic across a series of paintings that illustrate invisible forces, such as dreams, feelings, and ideas.
The Los Angeles-based artist is known globally for his ability to distill complex ideas into simplified shapes and messaging. Always working with a design sensibility in mind, McFetridge creates intriguing compositions that deal with nature and the human condition.
In “Sleeping Shapes,” his second show at Half Gallery, McFetridge has created paintings that serve as a visual metaphor for how the unconscious mind interacts with reality. Similar to exhibitions of the past, the artist opened with the following poem:
Driving across the US
Dusk winking with eyes
A lion in Montana
Deer in PennsylvaniaA year spent seeing strangers sleep
Bodies on the hillside
Bedded down in the parkMaking eye to eye contact
With something animal
That we used to
Keep indoorsDrive Across It And You Will See
America is fishing
Mule deer
Rear wheel drive pickups
On land that even bankers don’t want
McFetridge took to Instagram to speak on how these poems help him to mine for “images or language both real and imagined.” The result is a vernacular that brilliantly expresses intimate subject matter into a universally understood aesthetic.
In a statement on the exhibition, the gallery references a Rene Ricard quote on Keith Haring, stating, “The greatest thing is to come up with something so good it seems as if it’s always been there, like a proverb.” It’s difficult to compare McFetridge’s work to Haring, for the latter has paved a path in art history that is uniquely his own. However, when we look in hindsight, one can make a similar case for McFetridge, who repeatedly shows to be one of the preeminent artists working today. “Sleeping Shapes” is on display at Half Gallery until October 6.
In case you missed it, Geoff McFetridge recently teamed up with eco-conscious fashion label, Wasted Collective.
Half Gallery
235 E 4th St,
New York, NY 10009
