et al Projects is delighted to present Julian Lorber: The Real Illusions in Painting, September 23 – October 16, 2011. This will mark our first solo exhibition of New York-based artist Julian Lorber. Presently there are two concurrent types of painting: the more traditional ideology of involving the artist alone in his studio painstakingly working on a painting and the current trend of the artist’s assistants or machinery creating the work in a setting that resembles a factory rather than a studio. With Julian Lorber’s work one gets the feeling that worlds are colliding.

Julian Lorber exposes the conventions of painting in his constructs, which consist of layers, built up by hand drawn line and paint on surface to create a dialog with the process and the history of painting. His work embodies the many different ways a two dimensional surface can be a painting while continuing to explore new imagery that mystify the viewer’s perception. This series of work crosses boundaries beyond academic and modernist art juxtaposing ideas about common critical jargon and technical drawing, all while the individual freedom of the artist’s will is engaged producing a visual language that considerately disagrees with the idea that painting should follow certain rules and look a particular way, or evolve to fit contemporary methods of production.

His recurring pen and ink motifs in his series of work reveal the intimacy of the artist’s concept. It alludes to the sketch or the ground that painters have historically created before the layers of paint observable to the viewer are applied. Julian Lorber exposes this illusion by creating work that is rooted in the revelation of a layering process of different mediums.

The systematic, delicate, and personal application of these motifs, processes and layers also creates a critical dialog in contrast with digital pursuits. He is conscious of the digital usurpation and gimmicks in painting but only as a means to reveal that the artist’s hand can create the most poignant and critical art when perfection often seems paramount.

Julian Lorber received his BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art Boston in 2005. He was featured in White Hot Magazine’s Art Market Report:June/July2011 and interviewed in NY Arts Magazine Spring Vol.17, 2011. He will be featured in Studio Visit Magazine this fall 2011, juried by Ian Berry, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs at the The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College.