Boot, checkers, fish and other things
Sam Cherof
solo show
16 September - 30 November 2021
Boot, checkers, fish and other things - Sam Cherof
| courtesy of the artist | Cinematography: Grayce Toon Music: Production - Robbie Acento Drums - John Wright Production Assistant - Ben Houston Editing: Sam Cherof Special Thanks: David Cherof
These could be little drawings. But they are large canvasses. Sam Cherof’s paintings convey fragility and boldness at the same time. The first through the delicate surface of gesso and pigment and the hundred splashes of paint; the latter through their straight forward forms and large format. Intimacy on vast ground.
FISH, 2021, Oil, raw pigment, gesso on canvas
152.5 x 121.90 cm
| courtesy of the artist and Stallmann
STAR, 2021, Oil, raw pigment, gesso on canvas
152.5 x 121.90 cm
| courtesy of the artist and Stallmann
MOISHE, 2021, Oil, raw pigment, gesso on canvas 152.5 x 121.90 cm
| courtesy of the artist and Stallmann
Striking in the first place is the paintings’ simplicity: raw canvas; a fish, a shoe, a flower; a checker’s board. The motives seem deliberate; but these objects are vital to the images’ purport. A confident humility conveyed in the paintings’ largeness and strong colours, bound in simple forms and raw materials.
There is something joyful and light, yet vulnerable about these paintings. They “are not the large confident paintings associated with Abstract Expressionism or a lot of the more contemporary naïve painting, ... With my paintings, it’s about the humility of making it.” The simple shapes refer to the directness in the artistic process, applying and modelling the paint with fingers and rags. Their size and recognizability seem to draw the viewer in, making him partake in the works. The largeness and immediacy of colour generate a strong physical experience. “These paintings are happening materially.” Their colour seems to pulsate in its layers of paint. Distance is created and immediately taken away.
extract from the foreword by Christina Marie Luemen
CHECKERS, 2021, Oil, raw pigment, gesso on canvas, 243.85 x 182.90 cm
| courtesy of the artist and Stallmann