Gallery Neptune is pleased to present well known DC area artist Ed Bisese in his second solo exhibition at Neptune since 2006. Along with his latest paintings on canvas, the exhibit also includes three graphite drawings from the 1980's, giving visitors a chance to review and collect some of the artist's earlier pieces. The drawings will be available as limited edition archival prints.
Consistent to his 2006 Neptune show, Bisese once again finds fascination in portraying the famous and anonymous, sometimes as animals. An abundance of elephants as people prevails, including the artist Jasper Johns, vocalist Frankie Laine and the composer Serge Gainsbourg. Several new paintings are created on unstretched canvas and hang as banners with metal grommets. Giant animals appear in these larger works. An unsuspecting bunny man encounters an angry farmer as he grabs part of the carrot crop; in another canvas the bunny man has cake with the devil. Simultaneously ridiculous and serious, perhaps this dichotomy is at the core of most of Bisese's work:
"Back before televisions had remote controls, I waited each week for Saturday morning to see Johnny Weissmuller play Tarzan on television. Tarzan laughs at danger. Tarzan lives in an incredible world where nothing is what it seems and anything can change from trusted friend to deadly threat and back without warning or explanation. Of Tarzan's jungle friends, elephants are the best. Elephants are tremendous five-ton question marks walking the earth like leftover dinosaurs. Elephants prove being the biggest doesn't necessitate aggression. Tarzan's elephants welcome him as an equal. They are quick to help when he is in trouble. They are true friends.
Painting is making my own world. My elephants are symbols. They are metaphors. They are off stage actors. I learned on Saturday mornings watching 40-year old movies that the world doesn't really have to make sense to be pleasurable. That gives me plenty of room. Nothing is reliably good or bad, and everything is changeable. I find that notion comforting."
Ed Bisese 2009
Animals as people remind us that in many of our earliest picture books, this combo world made complete sense. Why question it now?
ED BISESE
May 7 - 30