~CHRIS BIDDY/NEW MESSAGE/ATM
BILL BRADY invites you come and see a young new artist he recently came across when he was speaking at the KANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE last fall.
Bill says:
“They asked me to do a few studio visits while I was there and by chance Chris happened to be one of those artists. He showed me this little painting, it must have been 6 x 8 in. and the attention to detail was over the top. Some might call it pointillism, I call it attention to realism but either way the painting was rich in color and detail. Upon further inspection I realized the painting had the most amazing abstract moments. I was blown away completely !! . . .
Long story short he contacted me after graduating and told me he was working on a group of watercolors, his first ever, and he would like to show them to me. Here is a young artist who has such a clear vision that it is inspiring.”
CHRIS BIDDY – ‘NEW MESSAGE’ – OPENS FEB 11, 2010 – BILL BRADY – ATM
542 WEST 24th St – THE BACK ANNEX GALLERY SPACE
p.s. CHIS BIDDY wrote a pretty amusing, and insightful, Artist statement to accompany his small but exquisite show !!
“In my work, I chase the psychological dramas and conceited behaviors of adolescents. The girls I portray are often in bloom, teetering between innocence and self-awareness.
The first step in my work involves logging onto Myspace or Facebook to obtain my imagery, which is often derived from a cell phone. Rather than photographing my models myself I leave the responsibility of how they will represent themselves to them. This allows the models’ own personalities to come through and gives the viewer a chance to either see a silly child-like moment or one of vanity.
The focus of the subject is one of self-rejection and identity development. I find myself jealous of girlhood and the paintings are a way of projecting myself into the situation. I am interested in gender roles and what it means to be a girl or become a woman. Culturally I wonder about where I exist as the other, or how I got about constructing my own identity, there are struggles both formal and conceptual in my work .?”
p.s. he told me the opening – that girls just send him pix – sometimes – it’s their first ever time crossing paths with him personally – and ask him to point their portraits. you can see why !!
it’s funny – I saw the moments he caught in a very different light – as a new viewer – than as what one might infer from his artist statement above. I found the portraits to be both kind and intelligent. and, girl fierce – in good way. the immediacy of the self-portraits, all in this show originate as cell phone pix !! – and the moments from their own lives – that the girls choose to offer up to him – were super compelling, as well. all played out on this super small scale, that relates so well to new message mediums !!
CHRIS BIDDY at the opening of his first ever showing in NYC.
ATM’S BILL BRADY presents CHRIS BIDDY – ‘NEW MESSAGES’, in his new space on WEST 24th St.
Feb 11, 2010.
‘COURTNEY’, 2009. oil on canvas, 8 x 10 in. ($6,000)
a small oil painting by CHRIS BIDDY. Mr. Biddy previously worked in oil – but now he is really into watercolors, and the rest of the show is all new work – done since this past summer. it’s fun to see the journey from oil to watercolor in the works !!
‘Sydney and Haleigh’, 2009. watercolor, 10 x 8 in. ($3,600).
it’s a nice range of expression – and, the portraits have a definite cell phone – edge !!
its also amazing to see – what this young artist could do with watercolor – such a tempermental medium – in his first time delving into – its infinite possibilities and sensitive terrains.
CHRIS BIDDY, ‘Ciara’, 2009. watercolor. on archival paper.
the paintings are all 8 x 6 in.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH
