Pedro Pedro
“Still Life”
New York, 312 Bowery
This show, Still Life, includes a variety of the artist’s signature imagery from bowls of lumpy lemons to a disheveled chest of drawers. No humans are present in the exhibition as each work is a new take on the still life genre, but also perhaps because these works were all made during COVID quarantine where the artist was alone. We are all starting to emerge from our isolation: is this still life?
These paintings have an overall muted tonality and soft texture that comes from the technique of painting textile paint onto unprimed linen. Instead of the paint sitting on top of the fabric these works have the pigment soak into the fibers, dyeing them. This however does not prevent the artist from using a palette of bright, beautiful colors and expressive juxtapositions. Puckering navel oranges are convincingly juicy, the American cheese on half-eaten sandwiches evocatively toxic; we have panties, keys and cigarettes, sloppy sneakers and sodden tea bags, fecund melons and sour little pickles; in one giant painting we have almost all those things spread out on a giant studio table.
One grouping in this show includes palette tables and painting studio debris; another domestic grouping has couches, dressers and dirty clothes; while a third series renders fruit and veg with more traditional, edible still lifes. Giovanna Garzoni (Italian, 17th Century) is one inspiration in this show, especially the final work completed, “Melons, Peaches, Lemon, Pickle and Fly”; while many viewers tell me they feel Peter Saul vibes from the funky shapes and colors, I personally see some Eddie Martinez in the flipped up tables covered with crap; certainly these works are vibrant and exciting and simultaneously humble and human, bringing inventiveness to the quotidian still life.
