Simon Gaon

Mostra personale del pittore Simon Gaon, massimo esponente dei Street Painters, ultimo maestro del Post-Espressionismo americano.

Comunicato stampa

per la storia artistica del personaggio che si snoda in cinquant'anni di attività ininterrotta nel mondo dell'arte, per la risonanza persino planetaria alla fine degli anni '80 quale fondatore dei Street painters, per l'indubbio talento pittorico dello stesso sempre alle prese con una figurazione suggestiva di spunti mai consueti, come ad esempio nei ritratti ripresi con una psicologia istintiva che ne sa cogliere sempre il dato saliente, o nei paesaggi impastati dai pigmenti dei colori, eseguiti con pennello, spatole e dita delle mani, tele sempre eseguite senza esitazioni, dove manca persino il disegno, paesaggi colti in una sorte di transumanza molecolare per lo più invisibile, trasmessi qui alla visione degli uomini come uno spazio di vita, anche nella perdizione delle strade notturne di New York o Amsterdam o Amburgo.

Perciò questa mostra di Gaon rappresenta un evento significativo ed importante anche a futura memoria, ecco perché questo artista che non esito da critico a definire un genio, the last Master of the Expression, sara' un avvenimento pubblico da supportare e diffondere con tutta la convinzione che merita.

E un pomeriggio inoltrato, quasi sera, sul boulevard la luce è radiale a tal punto da far apparire le figure umane come inerti caricature ensoriane nella congiuntura cromatica della campitura quasi stessero protetti dentro un'antro appena illuminato da un fuoco di autodifesa, indistinti, irrilevanti dentro la sospensione temporale che ne ha fissato i gesti ultimi, come i resti umani di Pompei.

Simon Gaon
Simon Gaon (born 1943) is an American painter, Expressionist, and action painter. He is best known for his intense, tempestuous, action oriented paintings of the cityscape. He was also a co-founder of the Street Painters, a group of eight New York artists who painted directly from the city life they observed on the streets of America's largest city.

Early life and education
Born in 1943 in Manhattan, Gaon at an early age displayed creative talents. By age 14 he began painting while attending the Roosevelt School in Stamford, Connecticut. A key influence on him was painter Arthur Bressler (1927–1975) who was Gaon's teacher and mentor. Gaon graduated from the High School of Art and Design in New York City. In 1962, Gaon won the art studio award scholarship from the Art Students League which allowed him to study art on the European continent. In 1964, he studied in Academia 63 in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and furthered his European education with the Art Students League Merit Scholarship (1965) and the Edward G. McDowell traveling scholarship

He later stayed more than ten years in Europe, primarily in Paris, where his style evolved. The works of the Fauve painters - Derain, Vlaminck as well as Soutine, Kokoschka, Corinth, and especially Van Gogh have all strongly influenced his work.

Gaon's philosophy and style
In his work, Gaon is influenced more by his temperament than intellectualism. He prefers to take risks, and edit later, putting the living experience of painting at the forefront of his craft. As an action painter, he immerses himself physically in his art, using pigment, emotion, and poetry to reinvent nature in a personal way. He paints nature and the city with abandonment and freedom, harnessing the different layers of the subconscious to help form the painting. However, life in all its energy and contradiction remains his inspiration. Subjects of his art include the night, the stormy sea, and the frenetic, carnival-like neon-lit city.

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Gaon is most famous for his Time Square series (1998) displaying the chaos and confusion of city. His depictions of the locale have been called dizzying, disorienting, and even mind-boggling. His works manifest the vitality, wildness, drivenness, and hysterical quality of the urban setting, ever expanding to the point of explosion. Gaon's chaotic Time Square, helps him, as an artist, express the contradictory life forces that live within him.

Gaon also focuses on those who live on the urban periphery, the street people, immigrants, and prostitutes. His paintings go beyond the immediate perception of these subjects, to uncover the inherent contradictions both in his subjects psyche and social position, and in his own consciousness. His subjects display a noble and prophetic character, as if spiritually from a bygone era yet awkwardly entrenched in a harsh contemporary reality.

Museums and collections
Museum of the City of New York, New York
New York Historical Society, New York
Yeshiva University Museum, New York
Hudson River Museum, New York
Art Students League, New York
White and Case, New York
West Valley Art Museum, Surprise, Arizona
France Loisirs, Paris, France
Millennium Hotel, New York
Carrot Capital, LLC, New York
Queen's College Museum
Exhibitions
2008

Gallerie OPEN, Berlin, Germany
Gallerie Rose, Hamburg, Germany
2007

Berlin Capital Club, Berlin Germany
2006

Famira Gallery, Sylt Germany
Nabi Gallery
2005

Dankert, Box, Meier, Rechtsanwalte (Law Offices) Berlin, Germany
Peter Findlay Gallery, New York,
NYTon Warndorff Gallery, Haarlem, The Netherlands
Nabi Gallery, New York, NY
Gallery Rose, Hamburg, Germany
Famira Gallery, Sylt Germany
2004

Jan Famira Gallery, Sylt, Germany
West Vallery Art

2003

West Valley Museum, Surprise, Arizona
2002

Ludvika Konsthall, Ludvika, Sweden
1999

Galleri Rubens, Smedjebacken, Sweden
Realismus Galerie, Kasel, Germany
Galerie Rose, Hamburg, Germany
1997

Galerie Peter Fischinger, Stuttgart, Germany
1995

Galerie Peter Fischinger, Stuttgart, German
Susan Conway Gallery, Washington, D.C.
1992

Frank Bustamante Gallery, New York, NY
1991

Galerie Le Chainon Manquant, Paris, France
Loisits Corporate Offices, Paris, France
1990

Galerie Peter Fischinger, Stuttgart, Germany
Galerie Rose, Hamburg, Germany
1989

The Exhibition Space, New York (sponsored by Ingber Gallery)
1988

Inngber Gallery, New York, NY
1986

Nicolas Roerich Museum, New York, NY
1974

Galerie des Ambassadeurs, Paris, France
1968

Art Students League, New York City
External links