BRENDAN CASS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 1, 2006 - January 6, 2007 Reception: Friday, December 1, 2006 6-8PM
Main Space: Brendan Cass, EUROPA
Project Space: Brian Belott, DEEP DATA

Freight + Volume is pleased to present Brendan Cass’ solo exhibition Europa. In the main gallery space, Cass will exhibit four large-scale canvases that oscillate between the meditative, the romantic and the fantastic in equal measure. The heroic paintings of European landscapes, which emerge from source images generally 2 x 3 inches in scale are inflated, piled upon, distorted and ultimately transformed into nearly life size renditions of the objects they describe. The paintings can be interpreted as memories of lands explored only in paint - known only in travel brochures and the imagination.

Cass’ application of material conveys a tremendous sense of joy, and also an allegiance to chance and accident as a way to provide points for starting and stopping throughout construction of the piaintings. Heavy build-up of acrylic paint leaves a sculptural impasto on the picture plane inviting the shadow it casts to become a condition of the painting’s effect. The very physical process by which Cass works becomes an almost performative act; spills, smears and violent expulsions are all carefully choreographed to depict cliché European settings in a style that can be described as pop expressionism teetering on psychedelia.

“You might deduce...that Cass is a Pop landscapist in the manner of Roy Lichtenstein. A look at the actual work will persuade you otherwise. These big canvases are energetically made with different kinds of brushwork, and indeed paint, and they pulse with a sense of real place. Whether that place is in Norway, say, or the artist’s own head, or both, is, of course, quite another thing.” - Anthony Haden-Guest.

Brendan Cass was born in New Jersey and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, The School of Visual Arts and SUNY Purchase. This will be his sixth solo exhibition in New York.

In the project space Brian Belott will present a selection of his signature collage books that function as an added complement to Cass’ paintings due to their rawness and playful seriousness. Belott has created a three-tiered display resembling a cartoon-like tree, which will house books of increasing scale from top to bottom. Each series of books will be a study of some painterly technique; drops, drips and dabs which can be read as characters in a larger aesthetic alphabet which Cass employs in his paintings. Belott and Cass became friends and collaborators while classmates at art school and this exhibition underlines the parallels between process and sensibility that run throughout both of their work.

Brian Belott studied at Cooper Union School of Art and at The School of Visual Arts. He has had numerous exhibitions in New York including Canada Gallery, Kenny Schachter conTEMPorary, Monya Rowe, and Stefan Stux. The exhibition will be accompanied by the inaugural issue of Freight + Volume magazine, which will include essays and interviews with the artists and other contributors such as Donald Baechler and Anthony Haden-Guest.

For more information, please visit the gallery website or contact Nick Lawrence (Owner), Steven Stewart (Co-Director) or Yasha Wallin (Co-Director) at 212.989.8700 or info@freightandvolume.com.