Opening reception: Saturday, April 4, 6-8pm
DOUG WADA
New Drawings
Sara Meltzer Gallery is pleased to present a project of new drawings by Doug Wada, on view in our upstairs gallery Saturday, April 4 through Saturday, May 2.
Doug Wada is widely recognized for paintings that depict mass-produced everyday objects on a one-to-one scale. Realized in the languages of Photo-Realism and Pop with a Minimalist sensibility - subway seats, washing machines, trash bins, baby carriages, lampposts and umbrellas, to name a few, are captured with attention to their poetic resonance. While Wada has created works on paper in tandem with most of his paintings, this project marks his first exhibition of drawings.
New Drawings is a seamless continuation of Wada's early paintings of air conditioner units. His source material is an accumulation of observing and documenting the urban environment with an impulse to capture what is rapidly becoming obsolete. Originally attracted to more abstract qualities, here Wada introduces forms of expression to painstakingly drawn renderings of air conditioner vents. Wada has removed the logos to emphasize the repetitive architectural motif and convey an immediacy of expression. In so doing, he reflects on the public's visual experience and highlights evidence of human use as well as tampering
As the Economy continues to struggle and the sweltering summer heat approaches, the ubiquitous image of an air conditioner conjures everyday physical and aural encounters - the humming of electricity in overdrive, the dreaded drip on the head confused for a bird dropping and the blast of hot or cold air one encounters as a passerby. Dents, scratches and graffiti situate the vents in a particularly urban setting where they are readily accessible. Playing off conventions of hanging, Wada brings outdoor architectural elements indoors where the drawings hang at the height of the objects depicted. Not only is the figure implied, but so too are thoughts on consumption and waste, as well as class. Revealing geographic and temporal context through a meditation on the object's design and its unabashed visibility on the facades of structurally outdated buildings, Wada's New Drawings capture a glimpse of our city's architectural landscape in transition.
Doug Wada lives and works in New York. Wada has had solo exhibitions at Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, NY; Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL; Borgmann/Nathusius, Dusseldorf, Germany and White Room at White Columns, New York, NY. He has exhibited widely in group exhibitions at venues that include Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA; Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY: Neuberger Museum of Arts, Purchase, NY and PS.1. Contemporary Arts Center, Queens, NY.
Download the press release (PDF)