JASON SILVA, HOWARD FONDA & ROBERT POKORNY
Land Purchase

May 25 to June 25, 2017

Ampersand is pleased to present Land Purchase, a group exhibition featuring works on paper by Jason Silva, Howard Fonda and Robert Pokorny. The show’s title serves as metaphor for open space as a framework for creativity. We live in an age of rapid innovation and instant communication, consummated and consumed, it seems, primarily in boundless digital spaces. And while we are rightly enthralled by and freely partake in all this connectivity, it’s worth noting that trending tags on Instagram, let’s say, often have something to do with tangible escapism—a trip across country in a van, maybe, or the building of a dwelling in the woods. Does this observation relate to something innate in all of us or does it have more to do with my own recent interest in notions of empty space and the possibilities therein? A land purchase, for instance, both literal and figurative, something modest in the current moment or something grand in the past, like The Louisiana Purchase or the fabled acquisition of Manhattan Island by a Dutch settler in 1626. Both were moments of sublime unknown connected to a raw expanse, from which new ways of living, languages, architectures and implements ultimately grew (at the expense, it should be noted, of much that was primitive and native to the land). 

Open space: technology in the case of innovators; blank paper, pencils and acrylics in the case of the artists in this show. All three seem to occupy a place between the current moment and the distant past, between the exact limitations of their practice and intuition. The small graphite drawings by Jason Silva, for example, utilize a vocabulary of repeated forms that imply a seemingly impossible, yet new direction in architecture while also alluding to more primitive shelters. Troughs, rigging, ropes and plumbing fixtures reference a type of civil engineering that may have existed in the past or forecast some future form of infrastructure. Unique furniture shapes, unusual symbols and recurring pattern suggest living beings of some kind, but we never see them. Perhaps it’s possible, though, that the characters in Pokorny’s and Fonda’s drawings can temporarily occupy, like actors on a stage, Silva's imaginary world. Pokorny’s figures and mask-like shapes echo the human form but are talismanic in nature. They could be, in this context, anthropological sketches of brooding sculptural forms or evidence of some unknown culture carved into the facade of stone walls. Or, as Pokorny puts it, they are not reality as perceived but rather an attempt to take a complicated visual world and with precise and intuitive flourish establish a honed version of it. This notion is echoed in the work of Howard Fonda, whose seemingly naive and loose drawings evidence his adoration of the romantic notion that fuses intellect with intuition. In the case of the imaginary world of this exhibition, his drawings seem to represent the interaction of humankind through sexuality, language and, if we read into the symbology of his raised hands, perhaps even religion. In dialogue, however, he notes that his drawings do not attempt to create specific meanings, but instead are an act of seeking, allowing for inquiries and tangents that transcend given styles, tropes or mediums. It is, then, not by chance that upon visiting his studio you will see a portrait of Whitman or a copy of Thoreau’s Walden sitting on his desk.

Robert Pokorny lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He received his MFA in Fine Art from California State University Long Beach. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited widely in both the United States and Europe "Each of these small works were created in one sitting,” he notes. "I feel it keeps the work fresh and honest. I approached them like my sketchbook, off the cuff and with the loose framework of the figure. I use my formal vocabulary and let the informal takeover. I might go in with a rough idea but really let the work speak to me. I trust this process and follow it through.”

Jason Silva lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received his MFA from The School of Visual Art in New York City. "Since 2009 I've been working on a series of drawings using the same paper at 7" x 10” and 4 mechanical pencils,” he notes. "Setting these rules/constraints simplifies the process. All thought goes into exploring the image rather than the materials. The limitations allow me to envision an infinite amount of variety in that one format.” Recent exhibitions include Paper Pushing at Marvin Gardens (New York).

Howard Fonda lives and works in Portland, Oregon. He received his MFA in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “I don't like to think of myself as a creator as much as a seeker,” he says. “And in an attempt to locate wisdom I draw as a means of sharing my experience with others. I like to draw for beauty, for clarity … for interconnectedness. It, like my painting, allows me to understand the world around me, to honor that which lies behind me, and to forge a path ahead.” Recent solo exhibitions include Thoughts Form a Stolen Land at The Dot Project (London) and Les Premiers Seront Les Demiers at the Governor’s Office (Salem, OR).

View additional available works HERE or email questions or requests HERE.