New Moon
2024
Morán Morán is pleased to announce New Moon, an exhibition showcasing ten new paintings and three
large-scale monochromatic film photographs by American artist David Benjamin Sherry at the gallery's
México City location. This will be the artist's first solo show in México City and marks his sixth with Morán
Morán since his first project with the gallery in 2009.
David Benjamin Sherry's artistic journey, spanning two decades of traversing the American West, living in his car, and exploring geological extremes like Death Valley and Glacier National Parks –– all to capture the immense meeting of elements that have opened eyes to the continent's immaculate disappearing natural environments, has culminated in his latest works. Since relocating to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2021, he has honed his technical skills and channeled his profound understanding of color and form into creating captivating oil paintings on canvas.
These paintings, like his acclaimed photography, offer a unique perspective on landscapes, using vividly colored monochromes to depict natural environments devoid of human presence. This exhibition is a testament to his ongoing exploration of non-lens-based graphic abstractions, manifested in his collection of photograms (2012-2017), published in Pink Genesis.
This shift in Sherry's material approach also presents a critical recalibration of perspective. Rather than depicting what is directly in front of him, as in his expansive color photographs, Sherry's latest work presents the
David Benjamin Sherry's artistic journey, spanning two decades of traversing the American West, living in his car, and exploring geological extremes like Death Valley and Glacier National Parks –– all to capture the immense meeting of elements that have opened eyes to the continent's immaculate disappearing natural environments, has culminated in his latest works. Since relocating to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2021, he has honed his technical skills and channeled his profound understanding of color and form into creating captivating oil paintings on canvas.
These paintings, like his acclaimed photography, offer a unique perspective on landscapes, using vividly colored monochromes to depict natural environments devoid of human presence. This exhibition is a testament to his ongoing exploration of non-lens-based graphic abstractions, manifested in his collection of photograms (2012-2017), published in Pink Genesis.
This shift in Sherry's material approach also presents a critical recalibration of perspective. Rather than depicting what is directly in front of him, as in his expansive color photographs, Sherry's latest work presents the
natural world as something not only to bear witness to but to be felt: a revelatory event
happening to their creator. Pairing these otherworldly, painted mystical abstractions alongside a series of
monochromatic, large-scale 8x10 film photographs of billowing cumulus clouds, each bathed in his
signature saturated tones of magenta, cyan, and yellow, Sherry unites that which is atmospheric,
ethereal, and symbolic, ultimately developing a visual language that departs from realism while
maintaining a sense of the sublime.
New Moon, the title of his exhibition, references an astrological event when the moon is between the Earth and the sun in its orbit, causing the moon's dark side to appear invisible in the sky. This phase marks the beginning of the moon's cycle, and in this way, Sherry's work points to the renewal of the self, a rebirth of light after a period of darkness. It is simultaneously about that which is visible to the naked eye and a realm of possibilities that lie in what we cannot see, the frontier between the known and the unknown.
These new paintings, says Sherry, "are indebted to the color of the photographs and of my time spent looking into the sky and looking into myself, longing for a connection to the universe, looking for answers." Like the paintings featured in his 2022 exhibition, poignantly titled Gloria, these abstract and minimal landscapes reflect the artist's desire to communicate an internal sense of landscape, the topography of the mind––a delirium of intangible territory even more challenging to map than any National Park.
– Lola Kramer
New Moon, the title of his exhibition, references an astrological event when the moon is between the Earth and the sun in its orbit, causing the moon's dark side to appear invisible in the sky. This phase marks the beginning of the moon's cycle, and in this way, Sherry's work points to the renewal of the self, a rebirth of light after a period of darkness. It is simultaneously about that which is visible to the naked eye and a realm of possibilities that lie in what we cannot see, the frontier between the known and the unknown.
These new paintings, says Sherry, "are indebted to the color of the photographs and of my time spent looking into the sky and looking into myself, longing for a connection to the universe, looking for answers." Like the paintings featured in his 2022 exhibition, poignantly titled Gloria, these abstract and minimal landscapes reflect the artist's desire to communicate an internal sense of landscape, the topography of the mind––a delirium of intangible territory even more challenging to map than any National Park.
– Lola Kramer
WORKS
INSTALLATION
