BONE PAINTINGS
PROTO GOMEZ proudly presents Bone Paintings, an exhibition of oil paintings on glass by artist Tom Levy. In his first solo exhibition with the gallery, Levy offers new works in an ongoing series of intimate paintings of historical objects and antiquities; this corpus focuses on a selection of incised Paleolithic bones from the Cave of El Castillo in Cantabria, Spain.
Dramatically lit and specimen-like, this suite of new works offers a visual rumination on the process of looking, an homage to an artistic pastime that, by virtue of chosen subject matter, can be said to literally reach back to the origins of civilization itself. Sourced from direct observation and photo documentation of an exhibit within the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid, Spain, these works serve as individual studies of the bones on view, a record of close looking and rendering in oil of that which was observed, while also pointing to the far reaching implications of art making as a whole.
Discovered in the early 1900’s, the decorated scapulae that serve as muse for the artist are sourced from the same site as the worlds oldest cave painting Panel de Las Manos, in the Caves of Monte Castillo, Cantabria, Spain. Dating back over 20,000 years, these bones are considered portable art and are prime examples of the Paleolithic gesture preserved for the ages. In the same way that art students sketching within the Louvre attempt to amass technique and mastery by copying the “Old Masters”, Levy’s paintings can be seen as a retracing of sorts, a literal dance of his hands across some of the earliest of human mark making. The artist states that to view these bones is to “come face to face with a reminiscent echo of our deep seated humanity, still very much present in us today.” Unequivocally true and how much more so with artists as a whole, who share the indelible drive to conjure and give form to vision with their hunter-gatherer forebears as well as sharing purpose, which though myriad, might still include the timeless quest to capture reality, hunt for truth, assert power and effect change in ones own world.
Tom Levy (b. 1987, Reading, England) has exhibited widely between London, New York City and internationally. Tom spent six month at the Cyprus College of Art as Artist in Residence, several years after being a graduate student there on a fellowship. He received his BFA in Fine Art and History of Art at Goldsmiths University in London. In 2015 the artist received his MFA from the New York Academy of Art as well as receiving various academy awards including Exhibitions Scholar Award. He is now Artist in Residence at 1969 Gallery in New York’s Lower East Side and was recently awarded a significant grant from the New York Community Trust. Tom has been features in (T)here Magazine in which he was flown to Miami on a residency and has been published on the website “painters on paintings”. He currently lives and works in New York.
- Images from this exhibition are coming soon.
