Panda-Monium in Beijing
MASSIMODECARLO is delighted to present Panda-Monium in Beijing, Rob Pruitt’s first presentation in mainland China and continuation of his current solo exhibition at the Hong Kong gallery.
Pruitt’s vocabulary is straightforward, minimalist, and above all, highly relatable. Drawing on everyday iconography with the frankness of youth, he confronts the viewer with the paradox of modern-day existence: one where the line between hope and dystopia is harder and harder to grasp.
The presentation at the Beijing space brings together Pruitt’s well known Panda paintings along with his paintings of faces. The Panda paintings celebrate this world of contradictions: on the one hand the bright, colorful glittery portraits of these animals in their natural habitat, depicted in glitter to enhance their innocence and endearing expressions; on the other, they are a stark reminder of the tensions and dangers that we are grappling with both increasing environmental catastrophes, as well as the precarity of our current geopolitical order. Vulnerability after danger should not be mistaken for safety.
In his new painting series of faces, Pruitt continues his pursuit of depicting the complexities of personality and emotion through simple means. The facial gestures are stilizied and painted on the canvas with enamel and flocking, these gestures are married to an accumulation of gradients and patterns to create a character.
Throughout his career Rob Pruitt has fine-tuned his ability to express nuanced ideas about culture and society through re-interpretation of common objects and materials, all filtered through a sense of humor and irony.
The Artist
Rob Pruitt was born in Washington D.C. in 1964 and studied at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington D.C. and Parsons School of Design in New York. He lives and works in New York.
Since the early 1990s, Rob Pruitt’s risk-taking investigations into American popular culture have taken many forms. From his notorious Cocaine Buffet (1998) and glitter portraits of Pandas or the significant Suicide Paintings series, Pruitt’s works are a surreal and extravagant interpretation of the pop world, a kaleidoscopic look towards mass culture by exploring the multiples aspects and the paradoxes of our present time.
Throughout his career, Rob Pruitt has fine-tuned his ability to express nuanced ideas about culture and society through the re-interpretation of common objects and materials, all filtered through a sense of humour and irony. With his Mask series, the artist continues his pursuit of depicting the complexities of personality and emotions. The facial gestures indeed are cut into the canvas with a razor - destructive and creative at the same time, these gestures are married to an accumulation of gradients, patterns, and prints to create a character