J O H N E VA N S
GALLERY HENOCH 555 WEST 25TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10001 917.305.0003 info@galleryhenoch.com www.galleryhenoch.com
Cover: detail view, Harlequin, Oil on Canvas, 60” x 60” (for full image, see pages 4-5) Photos: Stewart Clements & Julia Featheringill
John Evans Breathing
November 19 - December 12, 2020
Harlequin Oil on Canvas 60” x 60”
Silent Symphony (Triptych) Oil on Canvas 72” x 170” overall
Infinity Oil on Canvas 42” x 62”
Soul and Moons Oil on Canvas 60” x 48”
“There is a radiant form that I am striving for,” stated Evans regarding his paintings, “they never end where they begin.” It’s evident when looking at John Evans’ work that he is a painter completely enveloped in the process of painting. As one approaches his work, it becomes less about identification or subject, and more about a medium on a surface. Scratches, pencil marks, palette knife scrapes and drawing all take place, revealing and concealing, with the intention of servicing the respective forms as the picture is made. There are layers of underpainting that appear to live on top of other colors, rather than beneath. He allows the initial ground to exist closer to the viewer, thus assigning it more importance. Upon closer inspection, these initial graphite traces allude to a map of sorts, with the moment of inception occurring just before the hiker goes off the trail. For this new body of work on view at Gallery Henoch, Evans has revisited a botanical theme that originally inspired him following a visit to a garden in Palm Beach. A few of his photographs have become the reference for an entire body of work. This transformative landscape is one that he moves with and becomes part of through the physical gestures as they interact with the surface of a canvas. Waterlilies, a common visual trope in this body of work, float across the painted surfaces. At times they resemble hearts, at other moments they become simple ellipses, then still forms, only existing due to the surrounding paint that holds them in place. For an artist such as John Evans, the subject is less important than the act itself. He works in stages, photographing each painting as it evolves and in a recent conversation mentioned, “The longer they took [to make] the less like the place, they became.” Such is the artist’s journey. Painting is an act of faith and self-reliance, or as Picasso explained, “the sum total of its failures.” This type of dedication and obsession is paramount to the career of an artist, and Evans has used his artistic prowess to consistently delve into the world of painting, never tiring of the possibilities that can emerge from the unknown or from shifts in spatial planes. Ever fascinated by various locales he has found himself in, he paints both coasts of the United States —the salty nautical and verdantly lush. However in each instance, the landscape is malleable, a vehicle for a painting —a way to recreate a world that might never be lived in. What initially may seem to be moments of representation can also be construed as fabrications of memory or imagination. His landscapes, while inspired by veritable places, reflect dimensions of life that can only exist within the realm of painting. This is the trajectory of the painter, one that provides others with the opportunity to see something in a way that they might never actually experience. The invented world in two dimensions is one that is more vivid than anything experienced outside the walls of the gallery. The artist’s physical interaction with the surface, and his self-referential exploration of a theme, allows us to enter these lush landscapes and inquire about their formation. While the wonderment of where this place is might emerge, it will be less about where, than just admiring a space where colors sail and the ground is alive with marks. In that it is like a fish in a pond, lingering below the surface. -- Katy Diamond Hamer
Many Lives Oil on Canvas 64” x 60”
Parade Oil on Canvas 36” x 48”
Light in Later Season Oil on Canvas 48” x 60”
Origin Oil on Canvas 36” x 48”
Late One September Oil on Canvas 42” x 68”
Moment Oil on Canvas 40” x 96”
Etude En Baroque Oil on Canvas 30” x 24”
Finally Oil on Canvas 72” x 60”
How I Love Thee Oil on Canvas 64” x 60”
J O H N E VA N S Born: Education:
1945, Mt. Vernon, NY Boston University, MFA, BFA
Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2020 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2018 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2017 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2015 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2013 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2012 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2011 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2010 Sue Greenwood Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA 2009 Sue Greenwood Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA 2008 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2007 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2005 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2004 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2003 Coastline, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Alpers Fine Art, Andover, MA 2001 Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1999 Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY 1997 Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY Selected Group Exhibitions: 2020 Summer Selections, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Winter Group Show, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2019 Art Miami, FL Summer Group Show, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Art New York, NY Dallas Art Fair, TX Winter Group Show, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2018 ArtMiami: Context, Miami, FL Art New York, NY Dallas Art Fair, TX Winter Group Show, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2017 ArtMiami: Context, Miami, FL Context Art New York, NY
2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007
Dallas Art Fair, TX Winter Group Show, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY ArtMiami: Context, Miami, FL Dallas Art Fair, TX 50 Years a Dealer: George Henoch Shechtman, Gallery Henoch, NY Palm Springs Art Fair, Palm Springs, CA ArtMiami: Context, Miami, FL Water Scenes, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Summer Group Show, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Dallas Art Fair, TX Winter Group Show, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY ArtMiami: Context, Miami, FL Dallas Art Fair, TX Holiday Group Show, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY ArtMiami: Context, Miami, FL Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Dallas Art Fair, TX Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Dallas Art Fair, TX Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Dallas Art Fair, TX LA Art Show, Los Angeles, CA Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Dallas Art Fair, TX LA Art Show, Los Angeles, CA Cadogan Contemporary, London, UK San Francisco Art Fair, CA Art of the 20th Century, New York, NY Art Hamptons, Bridgehampton, NY LA Art Show, Los Angeles, CA Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Art of the 20th Century, New York, NY US Artists, Philadelphia, PA LA Art Show, Santa Monica, CA Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Art of the 20th Century, New York, NY
US Artists, Philadelphia, PA LA Art Show, Santa Monica, CA Gallery Henoch, New York, NY 2006 Art of the 20th Century, New York, NY US Artists, Philadelphia, PA 40 Years: A Dealer’s Collection, Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Gallery Henoch, New York, NY ArtChicago in the Park, IL 2005 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY US Artists, Philadelphia, PA Art of the 20th Century, New York, NY ArtChicago in the Park, IL San Francisco International Art Exposition, CA 2004 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY US Artists, Philadelphia, PA Art of the 20th Century, New York, NY 2003 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY US Artists, Philadelphia, PA 2002 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY Art of the 20th Century, New York, NY Meredith Long Gallery, Houston, TX 2001 New Works Summer Show, Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA Meredith Long Gallery, Houston, TX 40th Anniversary, Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY Craven Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, MA 2000 San Francisco International Art Expo, San Francisco, CA Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA The Art Show, ADAA, New York, NY
Selected Reviews/Publications: 2020 “Breathe,” Joshua Rose, American Art Collector, March 2015 “Comfort Food for the Soul and Drunk Pulp Fiction,” Peter Plagens, Wall Street Journal, March 13 “Paintings by John Evans Make Us Question, Has Man Made Nature Better?” Artsy Editorial (online), March
2011 2010 2009 2007 2006 2005 2003 2001
“John Evans,” Greg Lindquist, ARTnews, September “Coastal Spaces,” Joshua Rose, American Art Collector, December “Spirit in the Sky,” Joshua Rose, American Art Collector, May “John Evans, Jonathan Goodman,” Art in America, October “New York Reviews: John Evans,” Gerard Haggerty, ARTnews, June “Fifth Time Around the Block, Art20 Keeps Getting Better,” Regina Kolbe, Antiques and the Arts (online), December 5 “John Evans,” American Art Collector, October “Exhibit Reveals Recent Paintings,” The Villager, October “Artists and Their (Role) Models,” Ann Landi, ARTnews, December “Dappled Shades of Splendor, Chris Bergeron,” The Metro West Daily News, January 12 “New York Reviews: John Evans,” Gerard Haggerty, ARTnews “John Evans’s: Coastline at the Gallery Henoch,” The Week “The Intimacy of Deep Space,” Thomas Lyon Mills, January
Selected Public & Corporate Collections: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA Rose Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Provincetown Art Association Museum, MA Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AK Boston Public Library, Boston, MA AT&T, New York, NY Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, NY E.F. Hutton & Co., New York, NY Bank of Boston, Boston, MA
GALLERY HENOCH 555 WEST 25TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10001 917.305.0003 info@galleryhenoch.com www.galleryhenoch.com