Brian Calvin

Back in the 1990s, Brian Calvin began developing a figurative, non-narrative, pictorial style. Landscapes and portraits steeped in his Californian roots dominated this work. Close-up treatment of subjects, highly composed structures, and luminous colors laid flat endow these large-scale paintings with a  strange temporality. In observing his technique of pictorial economy, one gradually comes to see a type of abstraction in his representation of certain details. They reveal, even greater still, the true finality of his work, reaffirming the primacy of a visual reflection on painting itself and its possibilities.

Recently Calvin has held solo exhibitions at Anton Kern Gallery in New York, Corvi Mora in London, Cabinet in Milan, Italy, Almine Rech in Brussels, Belgium, Le Consortium in Dijon, France, and Marc Foxx in Los Angeles. His work has also been highlighted in several group exhibitions at The Pit II in Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon, France, Anton Kern Gallery in New York, Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo, Norway, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, Korea, and the Orange County Museum of Art in California. He has been awarded the California Arts Council Fellowship and Illinois Arts Council Fellowship. Additionally, his work is held in the public collections of the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Portland Art Museum.

Courtesy Almine Rech Gallery