• Biography

About the Exhibition

John Hull's recent contribution to New American Painting's "juried exhibition-in-print" features three of the recent images from "Sonny's Place." To commemorate this achievement and bring the depth of interest that this publication offers to the contemporary Denver marketplace, + gallery delves further into the works selected through the Open Studios Press rigorous jurying process by presenting five artists featured alongside Hull in the current issue of New American Paintings. Waddy Armstrong, David Leonard, Kevin Lucero Less, Thuong Nguyen and Kate Petley all deliver compelling and contemporary efforts in painting. Though stylistically different, each artist features unique characteristics in their work and the promise (and in some cases continuation) of solid artistic careers.

Delaware native David Leonard has established a solid exhibition career since receiving his BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. The artist currently resides in Austin, Texas, where he is represented by 2040 Gallery. "The primary subjects of my paintings are twenty-first century man's working monuments, which represent our culture's dedication to production and consumption. The paintings are meant to be ambiguous; they can be seen as an indictment of human waste and contemporary alienation, or, simultaneously, can be understood as silent tributes to the fundamental tools of our society that we all too often ignore. I believe that painting, because of its deliberateness, serves purposes that photography cannot. My paintings take a long time to produce and in this way they parallel and underscore the deliberateness with which our machinery is built into the landscape. They are a culmination rather than a moment - a "long look" at our technology and legacy," Leonard says.