From March 19 – May 28, 2011, William Griffin Gallery is presenting an exhibition of new painting and sculpture by David Lynch. This will be his second exhibition with the gallery.
Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana. He is that rare phenomenon of an artist who transcends mediums to produce a distinctive and consistent vision of the world. Today he is known as a filmmaker who in the past three decades has produced critically acclaimed films such as Eraserhead, Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire and the television series Twin Peaks.
At the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Lynch studied painting and live animation. He then entered the Masters Program at the American Film Institute in 1971 that allowed him to develop and complete his first feature film, Eraserhead, in 1976.
While many film directors have made forays into the other visual arts—usually as filmmaking aids—Lynch’s paintings, sculptures, and photography are integral to his vision and comprise a body of work in their own right. Yet ultimately Lynch is unique in creating works that touch a nerve in the narrative of the American psyche no matter the medium. In this he is a poet and not merely a fantasist.
This exhibition is presented in collaboration with James Corcoran Gallery, whose relationship of more than twenty years with the artist has led to numerous exhibitions, including three solo shows at the James Corcoran Gallery, Santa Monica in 1987, 1989, and 1993, as well as museum shows at the Touko Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan in 1991 and the Sala Parpallo, Valencia, Spain in 1992.
Recently, retrospectives of Lynch’s work have been shown at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris (2007) and the GL Strand in Copenhagen (2010). Other recent exhibitions include the Mönchehaus Museum Goslar in Germany and the Max Ernst Museum in Bruhl, Germany. A retrospective will be presented at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2014.