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| March 4 - March 26, 2011 • Opens Friday March 4th 6:00 |
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| Recent work from 2011 made while in residency at the Virginia Center For the Creative Arts
Ken Dubin will show selected paintings from his ongoing body of work, "THE EMERGENCE /BURIAL / ... SERIES" at ICON Gallery opening on the 1st Friday Art Walk, March 4th, 6:30 to 10:00 p.m. The show continues through March 26th. “I saw Ken’s Show at MUM last year and was blown away,” says ICON Director Bill Teeple. “The show was all about energy moving in white light. Subtle forms and colors emerge and recede into the white light of the picture plane. There is light, energy and silence together. I was also struck by the way all the paintings worked together to create a single organic whole. I felt that not enough people got to see the Unity Gallery show so I asked Ken to bring it to ICON. ”Dubin states that the concerns that inform his work are time, origin, growth, change, transcendence and rebirth. The paintings appear to have no beginning or end, referring to the idea of time and all that takes place within it. White is used as the predominant coloring referring to the potential of all possibility. The process of making the images involves much layering and working of the media; Work on canvas is painted with acrylic while work on paper is a combination of paint, oil crayon, oil sticks colored pencils and graphite.
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March 6 - March 24, 2011
Back in October of last year, only a handful of people made it to one of the best painting shows in the state of Iowa during 2010. It was located within the Library of the MUM campus, Unity Gallery, possibly the quietest place in Fairfield. It made perfect sense then, that the work of Ken Dubin was shown there; subtle works of contemplation, nestled in an inner sanctum, within a place of calm.
Sometimes second chances come around, and if you missed Ken’s show last year, you can now see an expanded exhibition of his work at ICON Gallery in Fairfield. According to ICON Director Bill Teeple, “I saw Ken’s Show at MUM last year and was blown away.” When considered together, the space of ICON Gallery and the paintings of Ken Dubin create a quiet, almost reverent atmosphere. Both the colors of the walls and the specific qualities of the lighting at ICON were carefully calibrated to work in concert with the paintings—the whole situation is a must-see.
Ken Dubin is a Chicago native who recently moved to Fairfield. The framing business that he established there is known as one of the finest in the city and his own paintings are recognized by other artists as works that are in tune with the formal aspects of the medium and active in their effect on the viewer.
Working primarily in white, Dubin explores its many nuances with other colors layered within lyrical brush-strokes that arc in various angles, forming web-like patterns that invite the viewer to look through them in a process of unfolding and discovery. This exploration of white is central to Dubin’s work and his relationship with that color has been progressing since 1979. According to the artist, white carries the “potential of all possibility,” and its use is integral to the themes surrounding his work: time, origin, growth, change, transcendence and rebirth.
Each interchange with these pieces is a lesson learned in paint i In my own experience with the poetic work of this artist, I’ve found myself staring deeper into each painting, searching the many layers and discovering how each color was used in relation to the other. Dubin’s thorough experimentation with color over a time span dating back to 1979 is a testament to his own patience and maturity as painter. This long term search within the chromatic confines and range of one color—white, in particular, finds Dubin charting a similar course with that of the artist Robert Ryman, who has also worked mainly with white. There is, however, a major difference between the two; while Ryman is purely concerned with the material aspects of paint, Dubin seeks to impart an effect on the senses through the paint.
The current exhibition at ICON Gallery includes work from Dubin’s Emergence / Burial / … series, with selected pieces from 1979 to the present. It will be on display until March 26th at ICON Gallery, located at 58 North Main Street in Fairfield, Iowa. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday noon to 4:00pm or by appointment. For information call (641) 469-6252 or email bill@icon-art.org.
Painter’s Bread, 2011