Dan Flanagan thinks about drawing and painting as a soulful rather than a formal practice, dictated by the materials themselves. In his work, abstraction and figuration exist on a spectrum, and his figurative work is a way of naming: emotion, grief, lost friends, memories. Materials drip, flow and pool together, pushing back against the artist. The work is a conversation, back and forth, with paint, his brothers, New York City and time itself.
The works create connections, an imprint of an arm or a hand is suspended in memory and the canvas. In Brothers Under the Bridge, figures stand shoulder to shoulder, shrouded yet protected. The bodies become borderless, become a community. The figures in Flanagan’s works grapple with vulnerability and connection. They wrestle with the ever mutating and haphazard nature of living and existing in the world. Flanagan’s works are friends, come to life in his studio.
Flanagan’s venture into more figurative work from abstract work marks a development in his practice, while simultaneously being deeply rooted in his obsession with the material properties of his medium and resulting work.
This Happened Before, Flanagan’s second exhibition at V1 Gallery, centres his material-led practice as well as connection, abstraction and figuration coming together to create a total belief system.
Fakta
Dan Flanagan (b. 1983, Madison, WI) studied at the New York Studio School prior to receiving a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute in 2008. Most recently, Flanagan’s work has been exhibited at Secci, Milan (2024); Jupiter Contemporary, Miami Beach (2024); Eighteen, Copenhagen (2023); Harper’s, New York, Los Angeles, and East Hampton (2023, 2022 and 2021); Mulherin Toronto, Canada (2019); BBQLA, Los Angeles (2019 and 2017); and Marvin Gardens, Ridgewood, NY (2018). Reviews of his work have appeared in publications including Vanity Fair France, Miami New Times, and Beware! Magazine. Flanagan lives and works in Brooklyn.
Kilde:
V1 Gallery
V1 Gallery