NEW YORK, NY.- GR Gallery is presenting “LIMINAL SPACE”, Dave Persue first solo exhibition with the gallery. The show presents a new body of works, expressly designed for this event and unveils 20 new artworks including works on paper, large canvases and collaborative pieces. For this occasion, Persue also created an unrevealed site specific installation on the gallery hallway and launched a new print and some classical merchandise.
“A doorway, a stretching hallway, an empty bus stop, being between jobs, relationships, or homes -- Liminal Space is the emptiness that is punctuated by arrivals, departures, and events in our lives. In 2014, Persue found himself in a liminal state. Having ended his career as a commercial artist, he moved to Brooklyn in search of a clearer path for his fine art. A well respected artist in the worldwide graffiti scene, Persue’s characters and illustrative approach carried over into multiple projects -- one of them ignited while commuting on New York’s subway trains. In his latest series of paintings, Persue honors one of the world’s busiest transit systems: the New York subway. A sprawling liminal space where millions of New Yorkers spend hours of their precious time daily, he utilizes the iconic Wet Paint sign as a canvas, and studies their interaction with graffiti.” -- Alli Bautista
Widely recognized as a legend in the street culture, Persue puts together graffiti elements with New Pop imaginary with an illustrative and energetic style giving birth to an exclusive aesthetic approach to Urban Art and a cutting edge interpretation of the artistic boundaries. This exhibition aims to explore exactly the changes that occurred during the years in the artist style and iconography that lead to a continuous evolution and bring together aspects belonging to completely different views and interpretation of art, culture, society, behaviors and work relations. In a certain way this vision symbolizes a journey that, in a way or another, a relevant and important portion of the contemporary art and culture has been going through in the past decade; a journey of transformation, adaptation and mixing apparently different elements in order to create a new a vigorous approach to art and life.
For this hype new project, Persue prepared a startling plan, redesigning GR gallery’s visual layout through bulky and colorful wall paintings, and other unanticipated operations, that strongly impact the visitor and fully match the outline of the new artworks. He worked on this project inside the gallery for over a week transforming the space and creating new pieces, and, before the exhibition will be over, an undisclosed documentary will be revealed. LIMINAL SPACE highlights Persue signature artworks including the iconic “Bunny Kitty” and “Wet Paint” paintings, some classical abstract and graffiti style works, going through the artist entire career and revealing also a new body of works appositely conceived for this occurrence.
DAVE ROSS PERSUE (pronounced “per-SWAY”) is a west coast graffiti and urban culture pioneer. His design resume pre-dates almost any example of street aesthetics being paired with the skateboarding industry, making his earliest designs the catalyst that created modern day youth culture as we know it. Much of his work is in plain sight and yet his name is rarely attached to it. However his skill and evident talent in the realm of painting characters and letters put him in the spotlight and he quickly became a household name in the worldwide graffiti community.
Persue eventually started a project for fun that would inadvertently become a phenomenon all its own: Bunny Kitty. His most ambitious and creation to date, Bunny Kitty is a whole world unto itself.
His animated and fun-loving demeanor, as well as an intense imaginative way of looking at the world around him, are the building blocks of his work. As a traditionalist, he paints on the streets, but has meshed that background with a rough-edged illustration style to create works for galleries and museums, where he exhibited worldwide during the past decades. Persue also did many collaborations with popular brands such as Microsoft, Osiris, DC Shoes, Eightball, FourSquare, C1rca, Vox.
