John Wentz - "Imprints"

Hashimoto Contemporary SF is proud to present Imprints, a solo exhibition of new work by local artist John Wentz. A reflection on process and abstraction, Wentz’s latest series of paintings perforates the structure of the classic portrait by exploring a visual breakdown of information. Playing with the viewer’s own projection onto his subjects, the artist focuses on a vulnerability and emotive recognition that seeps through each carefully rendered likeness.

Inspired by some of the art world’s most renowned contemporary portraitists, Wentz contemplated new ways to envision his practice in light of this month’s show. In the artist’s own words, “For Imprints, I took a step back to reevaluate my process. I was really motivated by a Chuck Close quote I heard in an interview recently. He was asked about achieving a certain style and said that’s kind of like putting the cart before the horse. He said, ‘style is embedded in process.’ Of course, there are elements that I’ve been exploring the last couple of years, but I wanted to take a new approach. So, I focused on process and let the image do it’s own thing.”

Imprints offers a range of insight into the different facets of Wentz’s methodology. The show is comprised of more than a dozen oil paintings spanning over a variety of sizes, including one life-size portrait and several smaller studies on paper and wood panel. Each piece communicates through a vocabulary of fragmented mark-making. Saturated strokes of oil paint are left unblended, giving away to earthy under-paintings and ghostly grids of pencil marks. This layering of different applications creates a spacial tension between the figure and the background. Wentz elaborates, “As you lose information, lose form, begin to abstract a little, it’s as if the viewer is invited to participate in the picture. I feel like it takes the viewer to a place of vulnerability where they can be open to more of an emotional experience that paint, in it’s abstract sense, can provide.”

Join us for Imprints, opening on Saturday, June 6th, with an opening night reception from 6pm - 10pm. The exhibition will be on view through Saturday, June 27th.