Artist: John Evans

Gallery Henoch presents Taking Flight, a selection of recent works by John Evans.

The exhibition features east-coast seascapes and botanical garden scenes, with the artist exploring familiar themes but using a new lens. Evans has been moving towards an expressive abstraction, and he uses this series of paintings to lean into it as he builds upon the more representational botanical scenes of his previous work. Thematically, Evans is playing with the through line of paintings past. These evolve in a new direction where, as an artist, he has an altered grasp on his craft. In this body of work, the artist demonstrates how previous undertakings propel him forward to new ideas.

Paintings like In Between and Moving Everywhere explore a starker approach to color, incorporating bold black outlines juxtaposed against candy-colored pastels. In Allemande, the artist employs texture to augment the image, using a roller to apply the paint. The negative space between the lily pads come to the foreground and serve as an enhancing element to the forms around them. Through persistence and experimentation Evans breathes new life into his work, pushing the boundaries of his subjects. He says, “the old never goes away, your tolerance for letting go of restraints increases.”

Carol Pulitzer observes, “These are compositions without horizons, without lateral divisions, but focused on movement and radiance. The paintings are at once flat and paradoxically spatial, compressed to such a degree that they’ve become more theatrical. Like looking up at constellations in a night sky, they have a radiant force. They feel limitless. Air and space are circulating, creating a zone that is alive with movement, as if the image were breathing.”

John Evans received his MFA from Boston University. His first solo show with Gallery Henoch was in 1984. Works by Evans are held in the permanent collections of several distinguished institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, MA, and the Houston Museum of Fine Art.