Les Aéroneufs @ KickstART Gallery
It would be hard to think of an American artist more in sync with the current cultural moment than Jef Bourgeau. His digital canvases are big, blunt, and often delicate fragments of color and high-velocity, giddy geometrics. These cybered-up trompe l’oeil paintings regenerate abstract art’s DNA into a sort of fizzy vertigo mixed with hypnotic reverie.
- Jerry Saltz, Art Critic and Pulitzer Prize winner.
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jef bourgeau @ kickstart
Game Theory & Aéroneufs
by Kim Fay for REAL ART DETROIT - Jun 30, 2022
"As an early innovator in digital art, Bourgeau has explored the boundaries of constructed space while playing with the interaction of standard perception and art. By folding and spinning and crushing, his most recent work interrupts familiar art tropes and invites the viewer to untangle that history."
- Jan van der Marck
This series of work takes Jef Bourgeau’s previously blurred, moody representational photography into the realm of digital abstraction. He selects an image, scrambles it then pulls and twists it into submission resulting in these kaleidoscope renderings. The use of red in this image indicates a level of control; these works aren’t complete happenstance.
This is a quieter rendition of the Aéroneufs due a cooler palette yet retains a soupçon of the combustible energy of the more intense pieces.
The two flagship pieces are visually distinct despite sharing the same palette. 23-Aéroneufs oozes and erupts in a trippy composition. 34-Game Theory reads like the computer-generated image that it is. The Aéroneufs playfully flow and squeeze while the Game Theory pieces are calculated assemblies. They both generate a tremendous amount of energy in a compact space.
It’s good to see Jef Bourgeau back in Detroit. Very few have contributed to this art community as much as he has. Always riding the edge of the socially and politically correct, regularly putting several toes over artistic lines of propriety, this body of work continues to challenge what is art and what’s just a little too much. Keep up the good work.
"Jef Bourgeau’s cybered-up trompe l’oeil prints regenerate abstract art’s DNA into a sort of fizzy vertigo mixed with a feckless reverie." - Jerry Saltz, Pulitzer Prizewinning Art Critic
On view through July 23rd at KickstART 33304 Grand River Ave, Farmington
© 2022 Kim Fay
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