T-GRAM, January

William Stockman's exhibition is one of six exhibitions focused on the metaphysics of the human figure grouped under the title Looking for the Face I Had Before the World Was Made. The artists include: Michaël Borremans, Samuel Beckett, Eric & Heather ChanSchatz, Lorraine O'Grady, A. G. Rizzoli and William Stockman. Each of the artists explores how depicting the human figure can offer something more consequential than a simple catalogue of physical features. Each work in the exhibition tells a human story while de-emphasizing the likeness of any particular person. Using a wide variety of styles, the artists are joined by an interest in creating a sense of a phenomenon deeper than the surface image, capturing a presence prior to the appearance of the fully formed individual. The line "Looking for the face I had before the world was made," is a quote from the late poet and dramatist, William Butler Yeats, from his poem "A Woman Young and Old." It can be understood as either a statement of faith or a philosophical riddle related to the formation of the self.

Looking for the Face I Had Before the World Was Made opens January 29, 2009 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. The exhibition is sponsored in part by Amber & Michael Fries, Emily Sinclair & Jay Kenney, and MCA Denver's Director's Vision Society.

- MCA press release

MCA DENVER

1485 Delgany St, Denver, CO 80202

303 298 7554

Members Reception Friday, January 29 · 6-8 pm

Public Opening Friday, January 29 · 8-10 pm

Watch Video of William Stockman

William Stockman talks about his work and process in this preview video of the exhibition

Looking for the Face I Had Before the World Was Made which opens January 29th.

In 2006, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver mounted a comprehensive survey titled "Decades of Influence and Extended Remix" of contemporary art in the Denver region exhibited in several venues around the city. While such a venture cannot include everyone and there are often glaring omissions, one omission was inexplicable - William Stockman.

Now, opening on January 29, 2010 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, William Stockman receives that well deserved recognition under the inspired curatorship of Adam Learner, Director, in "Looking for the Face I Had Before the World was Made"

I have represented William since day one of the opening exhibition of my first venture as a gallery director in 1999 at Ron Judish Fine Arts on Wazee Street in LODO. But I had been a fan of his work long before that.

The key element in my personal aesthetic and what I respond to primarily when I look at art is the process, the "act" of making a mark. I am most responsive to the presence of the artist's hand, the immediacy of laying down the medium without hesitation that confirms a connection between the mind, the hand and the surface. Bill is very skillful at using that connection. Limiting his palette primarily to black and white, he focuses attention on the basics required in the number of essential elements necessary to convey his intentions. Rather than providing superfluous resonance, we as the viewer, are offered inter-connecting puzzle pieces that allow us to complete the statement based on our own intuition. Stockman does not so much place the period at the end of the sentence; as he provides the noun and the verb, along with one or two adjectives, in an expository assemblage for us the viewer to place the period.

I, and Gallery T, are honored by our association with William Stockman and we cordially invite you to join Adam Lerner at the MCA Denver on the 29th.

Ron Judish, Director

www.galleryt.org

WILLIAM STOCKMAN

"LOOKING FOR THE FACE I HAD BEFORE THE WORLD WAS MADE"

MCA DENVER

ADAM LERNER, CURATOR

William Stockman presents drawings that are often dark, fragmented, and mysterious. Though he typically depicts human figures, they are enigmatic and archetypal. Stockman often culls his images from daily newspapers, but he abstracts and disassembles them, simplifying them using bold outlines. His drawings appear to be quick and unconscious, rather than laborious efforts. The results are pictures that feel archaic or pre-modern, as if he was trying to find, before the rational mind, a more primitive beauty.

Untitled, 2009, Pastel, oil pastel, conte, and graphite on paper, 72 x 78"

William Stockman (born 1965) creates abstract drawings inspired from the myriad of sketches that he makes of the everyday human figure. His drawings, some at great scale, present depictions of people - sometimes just their parts and sometimes in various arrangements - drawn in a visibly automatized and minimal style. He lives and works in Denver.

Archived T-Grams

Feb 10, Martha Russo

Untitled, 2009, Pastel, oil pastel, conte, and graphite on paper, 72 x 78"