Ascension

Jonathan Levine Projects is committed to new and cutting edge art. Our roots go back to 1995 when LeVine's life-long participation in punk and underground music grew into a curatorial experiment with the visual culture that surrounded him. In 2005, he opened Jonathan LeVine Gallery in the Chelsea district of New York City and had great success nurturing the careers of many celebrated artists. In 2017, the gallery relocated to Jersey City with a newfound focus on community and collaboration. The newly named Jonathan LeVine Projects aims to create engaging programs and interesting partnerships beyond the traditional gallery space. With an eye towards honoring and connecting with the history and context of Post War art, Jonathan LeVine Projects explores the terrain of the high/low and everything in between. Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the dried film. Oil paints have been used in Europe since the 12th century for simple decoration, but were not widely adopted as an artistic medium until the early 15th century. Common modern applications of oil paint are in finishing and protection of wood in buildings and exposed metal structures such as ships and bridges. Its hard-wearing properties and luminous colors make it desirable for both interior and exterior use on wood and metal. Due to its slow-drying properties, it has recently been used in paint-on-glass animation. Thickness of coat has considerable bearing on time required for drying: thin coats of oil paint dry relatively quickly. John Brophy is an American artist currently living in Ireland. He is represented by Roq La Rue Gallery (http://www.roqlarue.com) in Seattle, Washington, and has shown his work in galleries from Los Angeles to Paris, and from Seattle to Rome. His work has been featured on multiple magazine covers as well as books, and his paintings are in the collections of noted collectors around the world. Riffing off of the iconography of the 15th century Flemish painters, as well as such various contemporary influences as the writings of Haruki Murakami, the music of Brian Eno, the photography of Pierre et Gilles, the study of astrophysics, and the chaotic world of modern religion, he aims to combine the iconography of the present with the timeless classicism of the old masters. Working in a technical pipeline that involves the use of 3D software as well as traditional painting, his is one of the most labor intensive processes of any working artist today. However, it offers him the greatest amount of freedom to craft the precise images that he wants. Every element in his paintings has been hand-crafted. His aim is to reroute computer generated art into the world of traditional art by transforming his 3D imagery The Lost Mitten Society presents a visually diverse mix of emerging and established artists, all suffering from the loss of a mitten. Despite their frozen appendages, this group of over twenty artists have created small to medium sized, multi-disciplinary works, including a strong selection of drawing, painting and sculpture. In the name of solidarity, The Lost Mitten Society will be displayed salon-style in the gallery to showcase the group’s goal of reuniting lost pairs of mittens everywhere.