PATHOGENS

PROTO GOMEZ presents Pathogens, an exhibition by Hoboken-based artist Rob Ventura. For his second solo exhibition in the gallery space, Ventura continues his surrealistic interpretations of organic forms, focusing on microorganisms that cause disease. This New York City presentation coincides with Cells, a remote, site-specific art installation at PROTO Zero in Brook, Indiana.

For Pathogens, Ventura is debuting a series of six 35 x 40-inch oil paintings, each an intuitive depiction of an infectious organism, such as a virus, bacterium, protozoan, prion, viroid, or fungus. The artist, who has been working with biomorphic, amoebic imagery since 2018, completed the first half of this series in the beginning months of 2020, and the second half during the height of the COVID pandemic.
Displayed within a vacant storefront in the town of Brook, IN, Cells debuts a new series of wooden assemblages that represent cellular chains and protein strands. Cells/Pathogens, in tandem, suggests a balanced dyad of positive and negative forces, influenced by the Taoist concept of yin and yang.

Rob Ventura investigates the fields of phytomorphology, the study of the physical and external form of plants, and phytotomy, the study of the interior structure of plants at the cellular level. This interplay between exterior and interior forms metaphorically reflects the psychoanalytic relation of the conscious to the unconscious. Rob was the curator of TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS and CALLING ALL at PROTO Gallery and recently presented a solo exhibition of paintings and ceramics, FALSE INDIGO, at PROTO Gallery in 2017. He has recently participated in group exhibitions at SLA307, Signal Gallery, Freight + Volume, REXER Gallery, and Marquee Projects. His first solo exhibition in Manhattan, BLACK HENBANE, opened at MEN Gallery in the fall of 2018. Rob Ventrua has a MFA in Painting and Drawing from Boston University.

• Images from this exhibition are coming soon.