On view in the Main and East Gallery from 8 April - 8 May 2022
and in the Katherine Kilbourne Burgum and Gustavian Galleries from 9 May - 26 June 2022
and in the Katherine Kilbourne Burgum and Gustavian Galleries from 9 May - 26 June 2022
The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum is pleased to present A New Bestiary, which features pastel and charcoal drawings by John Scott Postovit.
• An exclusive Member Preview will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Friday 8 April 2022.
• A Public Opening reception will be held from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday 10 April 2022 with a 2 p.m. gallery talk.
• An exclusive Member Preview will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Friday 8 April 2022.
• A Public Opening reception will be held from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday 10 April 2022 with a 2 p.m. gallery talk.
|
John Scott Postovit was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota in 1962, and raised in Bismarck and Fargo. He attended the University of North Dakota, and graduated in 1985 with a B.F.A. in Painting and a B.S. in Physics. Since then, he has lived on the east and west coasts, as well as a nine-month spell in Florence, Italy. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited in galleries and museums in various locations across the country, including North Dakota, Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington, Ohio, Montana, and California. To date, his art has appeared in 41 solo exhibitions and 142 group shows. He currently lives in the mountains south of San Francisco, California, where he draws as well as teaching math and physics.
Postovit’s primary medium for the past thirty-four years has been pastel and charcoal. Over the years, his work has progressed to more detailed and complex representational work. Most of his work is done for specific shows, and the themes vary from show to show, from figurative to historical, mythological to allegorical, and cityscape to landscape. The common thread found throughout these drawings are the intense colors, and many surreal and anachronistic objects thrown into the compositions. |
|
Artist’s Statement: “A New Bestiary”
Over the years, I have cycled through many different themes for my art, starting with “Pataphysical Travelogue” in 1989. Travel, revolutions, Norse and Roman mythology, Goths, and an entire show based on the idiosyncratic oddities that I like to throw into the drawings. Why so many themes? Primarily because I find it more interesting to take on new subjects that require new drawing methods. But then, I also recall a long-past college lecture by a moderately famous visiting artist. It's one that has stuck in my mind mostly because all of his paintings were of the same thing, every one! So I resolved to be different, every time. Animals have occasionally appeared in my drawings, with my 2002 show “Circus" being the most obvious example. "A New Bestiary” brings back the animals, with a bit more emphasis on the strange, such as a basilisk and the two goats which drew Thor's chariot. Plus, of course, a zeppelin or two. I can’t make everything different all the time. —John Scott Postovit, April 2022 |
