Andrew Brischler

May 2014

The Arts Club is delighted to announce the first UK solo exhibition of Brooklyn-based artist Andrew Brischler.

Brischler’s mixed-media paintings draw on high and low cultural registers. He creates large-scale, boldly coloured works in which he combines references to Abstract Expressionist and Minimalist painting with the monograms or typographic marks of well-known commercial brands. Brischler is concerned with the process of making a painting, and, by experimenting with this process, he continually explores new possibilities for abstraction.

Often titling his works after lines from R&B and hip-hop songs, lines from films, sci-fi thrillers and logos of familiar brands, Brischler firmly contextualises his paintings in the contemporary moment in which they are made. With an academic background in the history of abstract painting, he consciously proposes his new version of abstraction for the twenty-first century, one that both makes reference to and breaks from those of his predecessors.

The deliberate imperfections in the surfaces of Brischler’s canvasses, together with his rough handling of the materials, counter the vibrant, often arresting geometric elements within of his compositions. Scrawled pencil marks and uncontrolled drips of paint fracture the surface of the works, giving them a fragility which is reined in and given structure by sharply delineated forms and letters.

Brischler will be making new work for the Arts Club exhibition. The exhibition reflects the aims of The Arts Club curators in bringing to light the work of dynamic artists at the outset of their careers. In October 2013, Brischler was awarded the highly respected Rema Hort Mann grant.