HELLBENT: Past Future Perfect

For Immediate Release

Hellbent : Past Future Perfect
April 18 - June 7, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, April 18, from 6pm - 10pm.

Chicago, IL [March 11, 2014]-  Maxwell Colette Gallery is excited to announce Past Future Perfect, a show of new paintings from J. Mikal Davis a.k.a. Hellbent. The Brooklyn-based Davis has achieved acclaim for his unique street art, which fuses intense colors with ornate stenciling of neoclassical patterns to create a bold, freeform geometry. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery and first show in Chicago.

Davis’ paintings for Past Future Perfect are part of his Mix Tape series. These canvases are “elaborate, abstract fields of color and movement, with compositions ranging from organized, quilt-like patterns to completely haphazard bands of weaving color”. They all have their genesis in overspray patterns on the tape Davis uses when spray painting. Strips of this tape are reconfigured into small arrangements that serve as preparatory sketches for the larger pieces. The tape sketches (or ‘demos’ as Davis calls them) are encased in liquid glass and are often displayed alongside the paintings they inspired.  Davis gives the Mix Tape series paintings their names based on songs he heard during the creation process.

Past Future Perfect showcases the evolution of Davis’ style and technique on canvas. The new paintings incorporate subtle shadows that give the intersecting planes of pattern and color an added depth and identity. In some instances he allows the white of the canvas to show through and build an additional dimension. In others, darker tones dominate his pallet and the richly layered forms obscure every millimeter of the canvas ground. Davis sees these newest pieces as being “rooted in the classical tradition of abstraction and the response to music in the art making process” just as the first ventures into abstraction in the early 20th century were reactions to the music of their day. Past Future Perfect is a nod to Davis’ influences while looking ahead to the future of abstraction.

About the Artist: J. Mikal Davis a.k.a. Hellbent began his street art career wheat pasting confrontational slogans around the Deep South of the United States. In 2005, he adopted the name Hellbent from Richard Hell, the influential instigator of punk. His recent abstract murals and street works can be found throughout New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Zurich, Glasgow, and Paris. His work is featured on many blogs and in the books Street Art New York (Prestel 2010), Graffiti New York (Abrahms, 2009), and Outdoor Gallery, New York City (Gingko, 2013). He has had solo shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Currently he lives and works in Brooklyn. More information is available on his website hellbentart.com.

Getting Pasted, With ASVP

In a world where technology allows artists cheap, easy access to print off 1000's of digital renderings with minimal effort, NewYork-based artistic duo ASVP are standing out. While the artists' identities (as well as the acronym ASVP) remain shrouded in mystery, the time and attention to detail they put into their handmade, silk-screened pasters is attracting some serious attention.

"Nearly everything we do is totally original artwork that is hand drawn, first in pencil, then in ink, then refined over-and-over again and slowly redrawn again in an ultra-clean digital form that gives us the ability to pull super clean, high quality prints. Then we burn our own screens and make our own prints.
We're learning that some people think the images are lifted because of how clean they are. This kills us... The handmade quality is an integral part of who we are and what we hope people will appreciate what we're doing."

Their pieces can be seen on the streets of cities around the world, like London, Zurich, Amsterdam, and Hong Kong, and all across the US in cities like San Francisco, Detroit, Cleveland and here in Chicago where there are still a couple of old ASVP pieces riding from years ago. So when you do spot one, take a minute to appreciate the fact that it wasn't spit out of a copier at Kinko's.