Fredericks & Freiser is pleased to announce an exhibition of new drawings by Nicholas Di Genova. The exhibition title Chimera refers to the Greek mythological creature born of disparate genetic compositions. Di Genova draws from this mythology and its scientific origins to illustrate new mutations and delineate imaginary genetic progressions. He also draws genera of reptiles, amphibians, fish, mammals, birds and butterflies in grid formations as the origins for these Chimeras.

What meaning is to be gleaned from Di Genova’s creatures? Almost nothing. There is no overriding conceptual framework on which to pin these intricately detailed uncanny drawings. Zak Smith writes it best: “Look at the many different feathers, look at the many claws, look at the tender loving dots like the way ancient Australians drew kangaroos, look at the faces of things that never lived but that feel so much like the fresh bite of life… look at the thousand ingenuities of scale and scaliness necessary to hybridize and make the monsters into pictures, look at the furniture of someone else’s mind—shorn of all the toothpaste and light bulb-thoughts we have in common because we live on the same planet and in the same time. This is art. This the human experience, involute and alien and accomplishing nothing but being there and being worth it.”

About the Artist Nicholas Di Genova (b. 1981) graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design and lives and works in Toronto. His work is included in the permanent collection of MCS Collection, Portugal; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he was included in Two Years, 2008. This will be his second solo show with Fredericks & Freiser.