Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Trevor Young

"Claim Etiquette"  50" x 50"  oil on canvas  2012

"Blue Brand"  42" x 42"  oil on canvas  2012


"Civilian Departure"  42" x 42"  oil on canvas  2013


"Three Squares"  48" x 48"  oil on canvas  2013

"Man in Box"  42" x 42"  oil on canvas  2011

Trevor Young's paintings combine minimalism and realism in perfect combination to capture the peculiar loneliness that haunts America's constructed landscapes. This atmosphere or spirit of loneliness is especially strong at airports. Traveling by car, bus or train, it is possible to open a window and breathe the air rushing by, which somehow turns the act of transportation into adventure. Airplanes and Airports are containers in which everything is in a state of suspended unreality, disconnected from the larger world. And yet, there is still something latent within them that holds a promise... for they also are the means of the most significant physical translocation available to us. They represent not only the very limits of impersonal tedium but also the promise of unlimited exploration. This kind of dichotomy is present in much of our contemporary built environments. The artist seems to love the cold impersonal structures of modernity in a way that is not remotely ironic, but rather it's opposite. There is wonder here. It seems to me as if the artist somehow possesses that spirit of loneliness, as if he becomes it, personifies it, and coolly observes with seeming detachment, and yet captures with aching nostalgia, places that most of us never look at twice or even notice at all as we bustle through or past them.
You can see more at his website, www.trevoryoung.net
or the websites of his galleries, J. Cacciola Gallery in NY, and David Klein Gallery near Detroit.

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