CHRISTOPHER DUNLAP : Morningside

Marvin Gardens is pleased to present Morningside, a solo show of 10 new paintings by Christopher Dunlap. Titled after the neighborhood he lives in, this exhibition of oil and flashe paintings brings back a local focus to a painter’s painter. Labored surfaces are carefully layered and seem incredibly specific, yet retain a softness. As do the colors, bright, yet set into place next to each other as if they were always present. There is a Nozkowski-esque hum in the background to the slightly off-kilter compositions, which seem to set up a compositional rule only to then present a foil to the structure. Geometric, but with the gentle touch of a human hand. Grid-based, yet off-structure as nature often veers. The overall flatness is pierced with slight overlapping of shapes and line. Light permeates the layers in areas that gives a soft glow almost like fabric, and the flannel and quilt-like compositions extend this notion. As the artist lives and works in Manhattan, it could also be understood if one made associations with the urban; structured, linear, yet irregular, and with a nod to the grid of city planning. However what illusion or allusion may suggest, the works ultimately return to their central and most frank material concern, the medium of paint for the subject of painting.