Reaves Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “Nearly Approaching Never To Pass” on Thursday, October 14, 2010. The two-person exhibition features the paintings, multi-media, and collaborative works of San Francisco artists Joshua Hagler and George Pfau on view through November 13.

By combining current technology with traditional media, Hagler and Pfau investigate both literal and non-literal representation of the human body. The notion of the layered body becomes a kind of schematic through which the artists are able to sift through an imbrication of memory, mythology, and personal reflection. The artists embrace digital media both as a tool and as a conceptual consideration in the work. Pfau excavates the wire frames of video game zombies as one of a variety of tools to depict skin as an influx or inside-out boundary between the body and its environment. Hagler makes use of custom-made digital 3D models to depict what he terms “the four evangelists,” four individuals who have had significant impact on the artist’s life, in an attempt to place them into a quasi-historical cosmology discreetly reflective of the artist’s personal memories.

In addition to implementing a variety of two-dimensional pictorial strategies, the pair extend the exploration to sculpture, video, and a collaborative work utilizing the same techniques with respect to artifacts from their respective family histories of generations past.

Hagler and Pfau first collaborated in 2008 in Oakland, participating in an interactive, community-based exquisite corpse-style drawing game. Since then, they have been in frequent conversation regarding a shared a passion for re-imagining modes of painting and drawing.

Josh Hagler is based in San Francisco, California. This January, he will be participating in a six-month residency at MIRA in southern Italy. His 2009 solo show at Frey Norris was the artist’s gallery debut, for which he was awarded full grant support to create work by the Wildgift Foundation in California. His work has exhibited throughout North America and Europe, including juried exhibitions with the Saatchi Gallery, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Northern California.

George Pfau grew up in San Francisco, received a Bachelor’s Degree from New York University, and recently an MFA from California College of the Arts. This summer he was an artist in residence at the Wassaic Project, in Wassaic, New York and then in Salzburg, Austria, as winner of the Daisy Soros Fine Art Prize. This fall he will also be showing work at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in New York and participating in the Vermont Studio Center residency program.

The opening reception for “Nearly Approaching Never To Pass” will take place from 6pm-9pm on Thursday, October 14th, 2010 at Reaves Gallery, 526 West 26th Street, Suite 706, New York, New York 10001. The show will run until November 13th. Gallery hours are Thursday 6-8pm, Saturday 12-6pm or by appointment.