Richard Bosman at Freddy

Artist: Richard Bosman

Exhibition title: Doors

Venue: Freddy, New York, US

Date: October 20 – December 2, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Freddy

Please note this exhibition marks the end of Freddy’s 2018 program. Please check back later for 2019.

Doors serve two functions: as a barrier and an entryway.

These paintings are part of a series I made in 2016. I think the presence of a frontal depiction of a door very much relates to the full figure of a person. After all, doors are made for people to walk through. Similarly, a garage door is made with a car in mind.

The paintings are objects and avoid all figure ground relationships. That objectness functions in an unfamiliar way when juxtaposed with a wall.

All the paintings are 6 feet high, a little smaller than a real door, but they have a similar presence. The paintings are based on observation, either from photographs of each artist’s studio door or an image of a door used in their artwork. In making these paintings of doors, my aim is to show some aspect of each artist’s personality.

Many artists have used doors as an important image in their work. De Kooning painted a whole series of women on hollow core doors and Warhol installed a blue colonial door that he owned in the middle of his studio. Warhol famously said, “you can go in and out and you never get anywhere.”