SHFAP presents far north distant west, a series of paintings by Gregory Botts from the mid 1980s. This group of oil and wax works, mostly on paper, date from 1985 and after. Several were done on a trip with his partner, painter Jenny Hankwitz, to Nova Scotia, and one work from this series was included in our latest exhibition, 12.21 Solstice. These paintings relate to a larger group of works in which Botts synthesizes his practice of plein air painting with the bravura brushwork and structure of abstract expressionist painters such as De Kooning and Kline. 

Botts’ admirably articulated surfaces are as much his subject as the landscape images they contain. In David Shapiro’s essay from a 1989 catalog, published by the Anne Plumb gallery, he describes Botts’ feeling for these surfaces as “a kind of truth to which he returns.”   

Botts told Shapiro that his “God idea” was “the flowing universe,” something we can sense profoundly in these works, which transform the gallery space into a glade in the woods when gathered together. The winds seem to whip around us and the trees loom over and around, created out of globs of paint and broad sweeping strokes. This equivalency between freewheeling painterly application and the complex textures of the natural world are part of what lends this body of Botts’ work its immediate appeal. 

Botts is a painter who travels between studios in the New Mexico desert and upstate New York. Traversing the country in a specialty tricked out Toyota van, he paints from life in the expansive American landscape and visits the often extraordinary works of modern and contemporary art housed in museums throughout the country. In addition to his painting, which has been shown in galleries all around the United States, including the Anne Plumb Gallery, SHFAP, and at the Tony Shafrazi and Salander O’Reilly Galleries, Botts has a published volume of poetry entitled clouds, leaves, waves… 

In our rear gallery, SHFAP is excited to present The Only Thing Missing From You Are Wings, significant works by Chuck Bowdish (1959 – 2022). A visionary figurative artist, Bowdish drew, painted in watercolor and oil, collaged and made books and sculpture. He synthesized childhood memory, history and classical imagery to create surreal works that merge autobiography and fantasy, rendering the personal as universal. Interested in what he called the “logic of dreams,” Bowdish developed imagery from hazy fragments of memory, exploring themes of innocence, loss, violence and sexuality. His combination of sophisticated draftsmanship and rich art historical references with the primeval fixations of outsider art results in a body of work that reads like a mixture of Picasso and Henry Darger. 

Born in Ohio to an air force fighter pilot father and amateur painter and schoolteacher mother, Bowdish attended the Ringling School of Art in Florida, studied painting at the New York Studio School with Bruce Gagnier, Nicolas Carone, Peter Agostini, Gretna Campbell and others, and in 1991 enrolled at the New York Academy of Art. He also worked for a time as an illustrator at both the New York Times and Fortune Magazine. Bowdish has exhibited with SHFAP on numerous occasions, including Under This Enormous Sky in 2009, and It’s Best not to Annoy God in 2012, and most recently in 12.21 Solstice. One of the gallery’s first ever publications from 2009 was his artist book American Dream, drawings from a rough childhood.

In addition to our showing of his works, there will be a major exhibition at the New York Studio School entitled The Worlds of Chuck Bowdish, opening on January 11, 2024.