http://www.leokesting.com

Jason Douglas Griffin, the critically acclaimed New York street painter who is preparing a monograph to be released on HarperCollins, presents a collection of figurative, narrative paintings and illustrations debuting at Leo Kesting on October 16th. The series of artworks entitled “80’s Babies” showcases Jason’s signature graphic style of strong line and color to capture what he refers to as collaboration or narrative of his sitters.

“For me it represents a passion for people, meeting a person getting to know them and collaborating with them to discover their story,“ Jason explains about his work. “In this collection I am trying to discover the sitter’s narrative and reflect that on my canvas, a representation of who they are as a person as opposed to a portrait.”

”Jason’s artwork is a brand of illustration and painting creating a balance in his artwork that allows the viewer to get caught in the emotion and drama depicted in the subjects’ own visual story,” gallery owner David Kesting stated. “These artworks are an example of how young artists, embedded in our graphic society, reflect upon the roots and foundations of painting which is the portrait. Afterwards the challenge is to discover your own voice from within that foundation and make it into your own. With 80’s Babies, Jason shows he can do that in a unique and original way.”

80’s Babies opens to the public with a reception for the artist at Leo Kesting Gallery on Thursday October 16th from 7:00 until 10:00 pm.

From its origins as Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn, the Leo Kesting Gallery launched in 2003 and developed an aggressive campaign to introduce new figurative artists to collectors and art supporters. Leo Kesting offers the art viewing public an opportunity to see forthcoming talents in an intimate setting where undiscovered, cutting-edge artists are presented to the contemporary art scene.

Leo Kesting Gallery is located at 812 Washington St at the corner of Gansevoort in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District. A, C, E, or L train to 8th Ave and 14th Street or 1,2,3 train to 14th Street. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 11am until 7pm.

Receiving Critical Review In:
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about the artist:

Intensely personal, while at the same time unpretentious and accessible, Jason Douglas Griffin’s paintings borrow equally from classical artistic traditions, urban aesthetic, and pop culture. In Griffin’s work, the intersection of cultures and ideologies produce an innovative style that challenges the common perceptions of art and identity.

Griffin’s art has been featured in several cities around the country, including Miami, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York, as well internationally, in China and Holland. He has been written about in magazines like, NY Arts Magazine and The Economist, and has been featured in The Washington Post, numerous times.

Griffin not only works to exhibit his art in galleries, but he has also tapped into the literary world with his upcoming HarperCollins release, “My Name is Jason. Mine Too.,” scheduled to be released, Spring 2009.

Griffin currently resides in Queens, New York.

Leo Kesting Gallery
gallery is located at 812 Washington St New York NY 10014
phone: 917-650-3760
at the corner of Ganesvoort St
8th Ave 14th st A,C, E and L train Stop

http://www.leokesting.com

info

http://www.leokesting.com

View the Collection

Jason Douglas Griffin’s sophomore solo exhibit “Getting to Know Someone : 80’s Babies” opens to the public with a reception for the artist at Leo Kesting Gallery on Thursday, October 8th from 7:00 until 10:00 pm.

The raging 80’s- a time of sex, white lines and financial excess, gave way to a generation of twenty-somethings worlds away from their baby boomer parents. With a title seemingly cribbed from a John Hughes’ film, “Getting to Know Someone: 80’s Babies” explores the intersection of self and city in a generation freshly bereft of their cultural icons.

80’s Babies continues Jason’s dialog with the 1980’s generation. “These works are elaborate profiles of the subject and the city in which they live,” states gallerist David Kesting, “With the incorporation of found materials, Griffin’s paintings capture the relationship between the city, the viewer and his subjects.”

This installation-heavy exhibition, a collection of figurative paintings and illustrations with strong influence from photography methods, marks the second solo endeavor by Griffin. “For me it represents a passion for people, collaborating with them to discover their story,“ Jason explains. “In this collection I am trying to discover the sitter’s narrative, the life they lead and where they lead it. It’s much more personal than any portrait.”

Personal narratives are a recurring theme in Griffin’s work. His recently celebrated book release “My Name is Jason : Mine Too” combines Griffin’s work with poet Jason Reynolds’ words, documenting their creative coming of age in New York City. The monograph released through HarperCollins publishing has received critical acclaim and has sold several thousand copies with write ups in the Washington Post and numerous other publications.

Leo Kesting offers the art viewing public an opportunity to see forthcoming talents in an intimate setting where undiscovered, cutting-edge artists are presented to the contemporary art scene.

Leo Kesting Gallery is located at 812 Washington St at the corner of Gansevoort in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District. A, C, E, or L train to 8th Ave and 14th Street or 1,2,3 train to 14th Street. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 11am until 7pm.

about the artist:

Intensely personal, while at the same time unpretentious and accessible, Jason Douglas Griffin’s paintings borrow equally from classical artistic traditions, urban aesthetic, and pop culture. In Griffin’s work, the intersection of cultures and ideologies produce an innovative style that challenges the common perceptions of art and identity.

Griffin’s art has been featured in several cities around the country, including Miami, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York, as well internationally, in China and Holland. He has been written about in magazines like, NY Arts Magazine and The Economist, and has been featured in The Washington Post, numerous times.

Griffin not only works to exhibit his art in galleries, but he has also tapped into the literary world with his upcoming HarperCollins release, “My Name is Jason. Mine Too.,” scheduled to be released, Spring 2009.

Griffin currently resides in Queens, New York.

http://www.leokesting.com

NEW YORK (September 17, 2008) – First Lady hopeful Michelle Obama receives an ‘Inaugural Ball’ makeover for providing a makeover to the face of the US. The sexy, bare-shouldered style-enhancement highlights Obama’s ethnicity to create a new fashion template for the 21st Century First Lady, and is the latest installment of sculptor Daniel Edwards’s “Inspire America” series, courtesy of Manhattan’s Leo Kesting Gallery.

“Michelle Obama’s Makeover for America” presents an accessorized mannequin bust of Obama that foregoes the conventional pearl necklace, and provides for her a ‘signature look’ to take to Washington. “The goal is to create a look for Michelle Obama that eliminates excessive comparisons to Jackie Kennedy,” said Edwards, who studied under the tutelage of legendary fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez, “like supermodel Tyra Banks’s photos in Harper’s Bazaar, or the puzzling comment from CBS’s Byron Pitts that recommended ‘less Jackee, more Jackie O.’”

A pearl-studded Afro pick, shaped like an eagle, demonstrates the makeover’s fashion mix of Black African and White House heritage to reinvigorate the traditional First Lady pearls. A tight, spiral-textured mane complements Michelle Obama’s likeness, with the pearl Afro pick placed modishly askew in a Nefertiti-esque hairstyle. Included are big hoop earrings shaped like O’s that seem to suggest, according to a gallery spokesman, “Look out Oprah, a new ‘Lady O’s’ in charge.”

Adorning the breasts of Michelle Obama’s bust are temporary tattoos, of which an American flag is depicted, to compensate for Barack’s pin-free lapels. Additional breast tattoo designs for Mrs. Obama, by Chicago tattoo artist Alex Higgins, will also be exhibited.

“Michelle Obama inspires a fashion template change that many First Ladies of the 21st Century may follow, as we witness minorities in this country becoming the majority,” added the spokesman.

‘Accusing British Museum of racism’

“As a professor at the New York Academy’s Graduate School of Figurative Art, I teach my students that the gold is found in the people who inspire us,” says Edwards. In an open letter to the British Museum at http://www.LeoKesting.com/, charging racism, Edwards suggests, “In the spirit of friendly global interaction, sculptor Marc Quinn should make amends to humanity by melting down his 2.8 million dollar gold cast of Kate Moss.”

“The sculpture of someone like Michelle Obama doesn’t need to be cast in gold for people to understand its value,” said Edwards, whose past works from the “Inspire America” series include “The Presidential Bust of Hillary Rodham Clinton” featured at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4R-8MUs4R8, the “Oprah Sarcophagus,” and “The Iraq War Memorial” featuring a war-dead Prince Harry clutching the cameo-locket of his late mother, Princess Diana.

OPEN LETTER TO Neil MacGregor Director of THE BRITISH MUSEUM

September 15, 2008
Daniel Edwards
Professor of Sculpture
New York Academy of Art
111 Franklin Street
New York, NY 10013

Neil MacGregor
Director
British Museum
Great Russell Street
London
WC1, England

Dear Mr. MacGregor,

As a sculptor whose primary subject is the figure, I am appalled to see that the British Museum would contribute to what amounts to as racist behavior in the forthcoming exhibit “Statuephilia,” curated by Waldemar Januszczak and James Fox. By hosting Marc Quinn’s contribution to the exhibit, the gold cast sculpture of Kate Moss, which promotes the Anglo type as the ideal form of beauty, I feel your institution is reinforcing a destructive message of racial superiority.

Marc Quinn is on record saying about his supermodel subject, “I thought the next thing to do would be to make a sculpture of the person who’s the ideal beauty of the moment.”

I find the solid gold sculpture of British supermodel Kate Moss, reportedly worth 1.5 million pounds and of which your museum is touting as the most significant gold casting since ancient times, to be an overt declaration that the English possess superior beauty, which suggests racial superiority. As an American, I am sensitive to this subject largely because the American experience doesn’t allow for the careless selection of one ethnic type to be upheld as the example of ideal beauty.

As sculptors, our responsibility is to reveal the beauty that gets overlooked by other forms of media. I believe, for example, in the beauty of the modern day American civil-rights champion Michelle Obama, and I believe in the beauty of your country’s wheelchair bound physicist Stephen Hawking. A sculpture of someone with their qualities doesn’t need to be cast in gold for people to understand its value. As a professor at the New York Academy of Art’s Graduate School of Figurative Art, I teach my students that the gold in this world is found in the people who inspire us.

In an effort of diplomacy, and to encourage better relations between the UK and US, I would be glad to set up a symposium at the New York Academy of Art to help British sculptors make better choices in regard to their work. The symposium could feature a panel of sculptors from different cultures and ethnicities, to discuss the global topics relevant to contemporary figurative sculpture that would appeal to more inclusive themes with which to inspire. I believe that rather than allow a fellow sculptor to make a mistake the way Marc Quinn has made, in alienating people by promoting an exclusive agenda that harkens Third Reich notions of beauty, we should all be willing to lend a helping hand by reminding each other to be considerate of the feelings of others.

In the spirit of friendly global interaction, sculptor Marc Quinn should make amends to humanity by melting down his 2.8 million dollar gold cast of Kate Moss before the British Museum’s October 4th unveiling.

Sincerely,

Daniel Edwards

Professor of Sculpture
New York Academy of Art