Adam Handler - Peter Opheim: "Warriors and Ghosts"

GR Gallery is pleased to present "Warriors and Ghosts", a primary duo exhibition of Peter Opheim and Adam Handler. The show will feature a total of 22 works, individually created by the two artists appositely for this occasion, that will challenge the exhibition title by unleashing a variety of ghostly paintings and abstraction filled warrior-like figures that will captivate and invite viewers into an experience that illuminates a vibrancy of colors and textures.

"Warriors and Ghosts" aims to exhibit unique techniques that immerse the viewer into a chaotically imaginative world. Both artists create a fantastic realm, populated by whimsical characters that reflect on childish demeanor yet also identifying expressions in the form of solitude, imagination, emotions, and connections. Peter Opheim's oil paintings are windows into a world of fanciful entropy, pushing boundaries by the unconventional and provocative juxtaposition of childlike inspirations with adult thoughts and emotions.

Opheim first creates clay figures that are at once glaring and enriched, then translates his characters onto canvasses. His colorful clay figurines embark his childish fears that are rooted in deformed body parts, unnatural colors, like an archetypal fear that hides behind the innocence of the plot in fairy tales.

Adam Handler creates vividly aesthetic works that cultivate beauty by returning to the supposed primal or elementary beginnings, adopting a child-like style, questioning our conceptions of and presumptions about our surrounding reality. Adam establishes his paintings on the floor leaning over the piece; it's a personal and psychical experience. Within these intimate confines he feels free to experiment with new concepts. Many of the tiny die-cut works on display represent a purging of his thoughts, passions, insecurities, nightmares and dreams. Adam's enchanting figures evoke kawaii, Japan's culture of cuteness, floating in highly patterned, kaleidoscopic environments. Yet, they also point toward our inner yearning for the raw emotional states of adolescence. Handler's paintings are ultimately maximalist odes to the imagination, populated with psychedelic gardens and surreal spirits.

Peter Opheim was born in Landstuhl, Germany and grew up in Minnesota, he received his BA degree from St. Olaf College with concentrations in Economics and Asian Studies. Although he had a lifelong passion for art, "I never took a painting class while in college, "he said. Instead, Opheim believed that his ability to create art would be best served by a broader intellectual base. He spent a semester in Thailand before graduating and spent many of his post-college years traveling throughout the world.After 25 years of acclaim as an abstract painter, Opheim experienced an epiphanous shift in his approach to his art. "I didn't want to paint things that had already been painted; I wanted to paint things that I hadn't seen before, things that didn't exist except in my imagination," he said, leading him to an extraordinary dual process. Opheim first creates clay figures that are at once daring and amusing, thought-provoking and boundary-pushing, then transposes his characters onto canvasses so large as to be life size. Perfectly executed brush strokes achieve a three-dimensional effect that bridges the gap between the painterly and the sculptural, and with his masterful use of color, the viewer is challenged to explore his subjects on both intellectual and emotional levels. "How a color looks is very different from how a color feels, so in my chosen medium I try to evoke that sensory distinction," said Opheim. Peter Opheim, who splits his time between Taos and New York City, has been featured in many prestigious national and international exhibitions, and was awarded the Pollock/Krasner Foundation Grant. His work has been included in important corporate collections such as Hallmark, Northwest Airlines, and the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, and is in the permanent collection of several museums in the United States and South Korea.

Adam Handler is a visual artist working with acrylic paint, oil sticks, pencils and markers, born in Queens NY and grew up on Long Island. As a young child and adolescent, he spent countless hours at his grandparents' framing factory in New York City. There, his passion for the arts grew and it became inevitable that he too would discover the many possibilities of art. His work replaces art's staid conventions of portraying reality by adopting a child-like style, questioning our perceptions and assumptions of our surroundings. His intense colours and flat drawings illustrate notes from daily life with humour, distorting the proportions and form of his subjects. Adam Handler's work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions over the years, including Twinkling Unknowns, Cohle Gallery, Paris (2021); D'Stassi Art, London (2020); Under Softer Summer Skies, Artual Gallery, Beirut (2019); New Girls, Janet Lehr Fine Art, New York (2019); Rarity Gallery, Greece (2019); Between Nightmares and Fairy Tales, Madelyn Jordon Fine Art, New York (2019); Angels Around Here, Ober Gallery, Connecticut (2019); Things we dream about, The Lane Contemporary, New York (2018); Smiling Eyes, One River School of Arts and Design, New York (2018) and Love Sick, Brega Artist Space, Seoul (2018) among many others.  His work has also been included in several group exhibitions, such as Blue- Taichung, FNG Art, Taiwan (2021); Look Forward, Look Back, Madelyn Jordon Fine Art, New York (2021); Girls and Ghosts, Morton Contemporary, Pennsylvania (2021); Swab Art Fair, Granada Gallery, Barcelona (2020); Beyond the Walls, Cohle Gallery, Paris (2020); Échafaudage, Galerie COA, Montreal (2020); Blessing in Disguise, Saint Maison Gallery, Tokyo (2020); LC Gallery, Brussels (2019); Texas Contemporary, Janet Lehr Fine Art, Texas (2019) and Top Ten, Maison 10, New York (2018) among others. Adam Handler studied Life Drawing in Italy and went on to graduate from Purchase College in NY with a major in Art History.

Source: GR gallery