Austin Eddy's painterly oeuvre formulates contradictions, drawing on Cubist traditions and seeking a balance between figuration and abstraction. His figurative elements fold into nocturnal landscapes, buildings become isolated portraits of seemingly claustrophobic spaces, floating clouds resemble bulbous fingers- and all stand at once for portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. Austin Eddy's work references American modernism both formally and conceptually, yet there is something beyond that, which the artist describes as follows: " I think the paintings are constantly trying to navigate a road between reality and abstraction. I am interested in exploring the limits of how far can you stretch the conversation between the two. The paintings are rooted in real life narratives but not necessarily tied to representing the world truly. To keep them tied to the earth I try to use time. Light plays a crucial role in understanding how these images work. Not only in the sense of time of the day, but also addressing the possible length of time something could be happening. Trying to capture an afternoon in a moment, or the franticness of flight in the stillness of a painting is exciting to me. Because I have pushed to simplify the language in the paintings I find it important that they are like pulled back to the natural world through the color of time."
About the Author: Austin Eddy, born in 1986 in Boston, Massachusetts, received in 2010 his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Since graduating, he has exhibited nationally and internationally. His recent solo exhibitions include: Immutable Traveler, Knust Kunz, Munich, DE (2022); Sad Landscapes at Le Consortium, Acadé mie Conti, Dijon, FR (2022); Marfa Invitational, Baldwin Gallery, Marfa, TX, US (2022); Above the House Where Paul Verlaine Died, 12.26, Dallas, TX, US (2022); Selected Poems, Eva Presenhuber, New York, NY, US (2022). Ory Dessau is an art curator and critic, working and living in Tel Aviv, Israel and in Ghent, Belgium. One of his renowned works, " Guess who died", explored the image and physiognomy of Palestinian late president Yasser Arafat. From 2003 Dessau is working as an independent curator with different art institutes in Israel, such as Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, Ein Harod Museum of Art and Herzliya Museum for contemporary Art. On July 2007 Dessau was chosen to curate the annual " Omanut Haaretz" (Art of the Country) exhibition at the Sukkotholiday in September. Matthias Kunz has been Sabine Knust's partner since 1998 in the gallery now operating under the name Knust Kunz Gallery Editions. They work together with John Armleder, Georg Baselitz, Peter Doig, Liam Gillick, Benjamin Katz, Jonathan Lasker, Markus Lü pertz, Jorge Pardon, Richard Prince, Arnulf Rainer, Daniel Richter, Ursula Schulz-Domburg, Katharina Sieverding, and others.