Something of a celebration of slackerdom, Calvin's idiosyncratic paintings capture the decadent melancholy and malaise of modern Californian living, whilst also revealing the artist's keen powers of observation, rigorous approach to his craft and attention to the formal dimensions of his medium. Calvin's highly stylized figures, flattened pallet and skewed cropping have earned him comparison with Alex Katz and David Hockney, who he appears to be at once emulating and parodying, while simultaneously referencing music and pop-culture icons. Despite the presence of his cartoonish protagonists, the paintings utterly resonate with the principles of abstraction; figures stand as vessels for unplaceable narratives, ones which only unveil themselves through fragments and uncanny reflections. Calvin's work has been included in group shows such as the California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach; Beja to Vancouver, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, 2003; Painting Pictures; Dear Painter, paint me..., Centre Pompidou, Paris, France. He also recently collaborated with his longtime friend, Raf Simons, lending the Californian ease of his works to the Belgian designer's Spring/Summer 13 collection.

Author: Anton Kern
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Black Dog Press
Published: 11/11/2014
Pages: 128
Weight: 2.28lbs
Size: 10.52h x 10.33w x 0.68d
ISBN: 9781908966964

About the Author
Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer: Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer is an art writer and curator based in Los Angeles, where she teaches at Otis College of Art and Design, publishes Pep Talk, and runs the experimental art venue The Finley Gallery. Her writing has appeared in such publications as Artforum, ArtReview, ArtSlant and Mousse.

Bruce Hainley: A contributing editor at Artforum, he is the author of two books of poetry, one of which, Foul Mouth, was a finalist in the National Poetry Series. With John Waters, he wrote Art--A Sex Book. He teaches in the MFA programs of Art Center College of Design and the Roski School of Fine Arts.

Brian Calvin: Brian Calvin (born in 1969 in Visalia, California) is an American artist best known for his painting's idiosyncratic scenes of melancholic figures. He received his BA from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992 and his M.F.A from The Art Institute of Chicago in 1994. He received honors in 2003 during his Californian Arts Council Fellowship with the Art Production Fund in Giverny, France.