SANTA MONICA, CA.- Mark Moore Gallery presents its fifth solo exhibition of new work by painter Tim Bavington. Marking Bavington's tenth year of representation by the gallery, "Decade" features a distinctive new body of work in addition to his iconic striped paintings and variations thereof.
Utilizing pop and rock music as his source material, Bavington acts as a translator between the aural and visual. Guitar solos of the Rolling Stones, Elvis and Oasis become vibrant bands of color – a bold palette influenced by his longtime Las Vegas residence – as they bridge compositional concepts between seemingly disparate fields. Now experimenting with album cover motifs, Bavington exercises his adept employment of duality in homage to his influences in both music and art. While he generates tributes to the guitar gods and vinyl luminaries of his record collection, Bavington simultaneously "covers" the heavy-hitters of contemporary painting by converting popular album covers of decades past into paeans to the color-field paintings of the 50s and 60s: "Give 'Em Enough Rope" by the Clash becomes a hazy tribute to Mark Rothko while "Blue Monday" by New Order is a gleaming rendition of Kenneth Noland's concentric circles.
"Where Greenberg favored reductive purity in abstract painting, Mr. Bavington offers conceptual mongrelism and psychedelic hedonism. Against a morality of Puritan restraint, he asserts an expansive aesthetics of seduction and sensory intoxication." – Ken Johnson, New York Times (2009).
Tim Bavington (born 1966, England) received his BFA from the Art Center (CA) before making the permanent move to Las Vegas, where he completed his MFA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (NV). His work is included in the public collections of Fredrick R. Weisman Collection (CA), Albright-Knox Art Gallery (NY), Creative Artists Agency (CA), Joslyn Art Museum (NE), Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA), Portland Art Museum (OR), United Talent Agency (CA), Vivendi Universal (CA), Palm Springs Art Museum (CA), Denver Art Museum (CO) and The Museum of Modern Art (NY).
