Paul Manes

Cris Worley Fine Arts is pleased to present our sixth solo exhibition of oil paintings by Paul Manes. The exhibition entitled, Recent Paintings, opens Saturday, February 20th, and will be on view through March 27th, 2021. The gallery will hold an Artist Meet & Greet, Saturday, March 13th from noon to 4pm. The artist will be in attendance. No appointment is required; the gallery will allow up to 10 visitors in the space at a time.

While Paul Manes is widely known for his representational imagery that stems from an influence in Western European art history, Recent Paintings reveals the artist’s pull toward abstraction. Over the course of four decades, Manes has punctuated his practice with frequent returns to abstraction. Featured in the exhibition are several new paintings, based initially on the cityscape. Through the painting process, the subject matter later becomes obfuscated by tonal hatch marks that conceal the original source, providing only a remnant of its origins, leaving the viewer to question what was once there.

WWII warplanes, landscapes, and raindrop paintings hang in contrast to the abstract paintings, creating a curious dialogue between the subject and the unknown, a visual contrast the artist finds compelling, but which also underscores a skill at handling both approaches with keen proficiency. Themes of life, death, power, and freedom pervade as Manes contemplates both his personal and social history.

Paul Manes was born in Austin, Texas. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas in 1983 and went on to study at Hunter College in New York City. His works have been exhibited in one-person exhibitions across Texas, California, and New York, as well as internationally throughout Italy, France, Monaco, and Germany. His work was included in the 2016 exhibition Painting After Postmodernism in Brussels, Belgium. Manes’ work can be found in the permanent collections of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Tucson Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts Houston; the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont; and in the private collections of Yoko Ono and Emeril Lagasse. The artist currently lives and works in Carbondale, Colorado.

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Recent Paintings

February 20 – March 27, 2021

Featured Works

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