EXHIBITION PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
Contact: Brad Cooper  813-248-6098
 

03.26.06
GALLERY TWO

WILLARD LUSTENADER
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

APRIL 15 – MAY 27, 2006

Brad Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of realist paintings by Connecticut-based artist Willard Lustenader, from April 15 through May 27, 2006.   The Gallery is located at 1712 E 7^th Ave in YBOR CITY, and hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11am until 5pm. (Please call 813-248-6098 for additional evening and weekend hours.)   An opening reception will be held Saturday evening, April 15,  from 7 to 9 p.m.  
 

“My paintings and drawings are quiet envelopes for reflection, not merely arrangements.  A traditional, yet often varied, method of working allows me to use the light of the natural world to seductively explore an individual’s private space. With regard to the “cut-out” still life paintings: These pictures have developed over the past four years as I combine my interests in early modernist collage and post-war abstract color field painting with contemporary representational language.  During the late 1980’s and early 1990’s I made a protracted foray into abstract field painting as a means of exploration.  This freedom of the open dialog and mark making is redressed here in a realist format.  Aside from playing with spatial equations, they reference ideas concerning community and self;  these hermetically composed compositions are neighborhoods both urban and suburban where  “stuff” happens.  My goal is to have two worlds operating simultaneously:  the immediately experienced, and the referential.”
                                                                                                                                                                              -WILLARD LUSTENADER
 

Willard Lustenader, holds a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College (1979) and a master’s degree from the University of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art (1981). After a brief stint at the Wildenstein Gallery in New York he moved to Connecticut where he devoted himself full time to painting and drawing.   Lustenader’s solo exhibits include Yale University, New Haven, Ward Center for the Arts, Baltimore, and the Paul Mellon Arts Center in Connecticut. His work is included in numerous collections: New Britain Museum of American Art, CT,  Surdna Foundation, NY and the Robert & Maureen Rothchilde Collection, NY. After being awarded “Best of Show” in 2002, “Nude in the Postmodern” International Juried Exhibition, Willard Lustenader’s work has been represented in the region by Brad Cooper Gallery.

Brad Cooper Gallery
1712 E 7th Ave. YBOR CITY  (between 17th & 18th St)

11am - 5 pm / Wed – Sat  &  by appointment.