NEW YORK, NY.- Jonathan LeVine Gallery presents Power Tripping, new works by celebrated Australian artist Anthony Lister in what is his first solo exhibition with the gallery. In conjunction with Power Tripping, the artist will paint a public mural located on Mulberry Street (between Canal and Hester) for The L.I.S.A. Project NYC, as well as release a bronze edition and hand-embellished print.

Using a method he describes as adventure painting—an experimental practice that embraces chance and accident—Lister creates his distinctive imagery on the street and in his studio with the intention of blurring the boundaries that separate highbrow and lowbrow in contemporary art.

With a loose, visceral energy, Lister’s style is full of movement and deeply rooted in expressionism. His subjects convey a sense of both grace and grit. Combining bold accent colors and blunt brushstrokes with drippy layers of ink, oil and spray paint, his comic-inspired superheroes and villains are abstracted by a raw, gestural approach. Often masked, crowned or caped, their actions are punctuated by strong body language such as gloved fists resting confidently on their hips or raised high in the air, triumphantly.

Underlying themes in Lister’s works often contain a certain degree of socio-political commentary. On the subject of his exhibition title, Power Tripping, the artist states: “Authoritarian bullies have ruled civilizations for centuries. Over time, the whip has been replaced with the sword and the sword replaced with the gun. Chains have been traded for handcuffs and our common sense traded for common dollars.”

Anthony Lister was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1979, where he is currently based. He received a BFA from Queensland College of the Arts in 2001 and helped pioneer the street art movement in Brisbane before moving to New York in 2003 to apprentice with his mentor, Max Gimblett. Lister was the recipient of the 2004 Education Queensland Minister’s Art Award. His work has been featured in numerous publications, exhibited internationally and is included in a number of permanent collections such as the National Gallery of Australia. Anthony Lister: Adventure Painter, a forthcoming monograph by Roger Gastman and Tristan Manco, will be published by Gingko Press in 2014.