John Bauer works tread a fine line between beauty and discord. The concentration of his replicated gestures aggregate as veneers of suggestive descriptions, as if condensing multiple film frames into one overall composition. Alluding to external environment as much as internal psychological state, Bauer uses the monochromatic palette associated with photography and the pixilated effect of print media to heighten the sense of virtuality and information overload. His images exude a frenetic, apocalyptic energy reflective of urban experience.

Despite their intense vivacity Bauer's canvases are piercingly austere. Executed with a limited palette of gloss and matte blacks and metallic silvers, Bauer's paintings possess an imposing elegance, their flat decal-like surfaces are coded within the glamour of industrial design and the holographic sheen of futurism. Through Bauer's densely overlapped patterns, translucent layers, and emotive distance, the impersonal characteristics of digitized imagery and his detached processes of working gain a unique subjectivity infusing the seamless and generic with a contemplative aura of personal negotiation. Merging the authentic signifiers of abstraction, the reproducibility of pop, and the graphicness of design, John Bauer's canvases set up planes where visual language is refracted, confused, and reconstructed into disjointed, antagonistic compositions. Beginning each painting with a low-tech computer drawing, Bauer develops his work through a complicated process incorporating hands-off painting techniques such as stenciling, silk-screening and spraying that translate digitized graphics towards sublime fields of painterly abstraction.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2003

?Free-Floating Anxiety, Bellwether, Brooklyn

1998

?New Oils, Clementine Gallery, New York

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2005

?New York's Finest, Canada Gallery, New York

2004

?Grotto II, Jessica Murray Projects, Brooklyn

?Hello Chelsea, Bellwether, New York

2003

?Recession 2003, $99 show, curated by Tim Thyzel, Cynthia Broan Gallery, New York

?Launched, Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York

2002

?Proper Villains, Cur. David Hunt, Space Untitled, New Haven

?End of the Rainbow, Bellwether, Brooklyn

?Grotto, Jessica Murray Projects, Brooklyn

?The Accelerated Grimace, Cur. David Hunt, Daniel Silverstein Gallery, New York

?Building Anxiety, Ten in One Gallery, New York

2001

?John Bauer and Diana Puntar, Bellwether, Brooklyn

2000

?Flat File, Bellwether, Brooklyn

1998

?Summer Bonanza, Clementine Gallery, New York

?The Art Exchange Show, De Chiara/Stewart Gallery, New York

?Winterland, Cur. Liz Christensen, The Lobby Gallery at Deutsche Bank, New York

1996

?Filter; John Bauer, John Silvis, Lyle Staar, Project II, New York

Conclusions:

John Bauer works tread a fine line between beauty and discord. The concentration of his replicated gestures aggregate as veneers of suggestive descriptions, as if condensing multiple film frames into one overall composition.

What to Do Next...

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