Mosaiko

Dean Monogenis

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Dream or Memory or Builded Stone

The gallery Xippas is glad to announce the first solo exhibition of Dean Monogenis in Athens, from February 9 to April 28, 2012.

Dean Monogenis’s paintings depict environments merging urban, architectural constructions with natural elements. He combines details of unfinished buildings, colored scaffoldings and condo structures in landscapes made of rock cliffs, vegetation, looming skies and colored abysses. He thus points out the constant state of change and transition, the challenge between nature and human perseverance in the perpetually in-progress urban landscape.

Each scene, like a still from a dreamy narrative with evocative titles, focuses on the idea of growth and transformation, conceptually as well as in the process of painting. Monogenis, working on wood panels, applies “paint in layers to build objects like buildings”, also using the dialogue and the tension established between different painting techniques (stencil-applied graphics or free hand elements, glossy details and matte surfaces).

Profoundly marked by the catastrophic events of 9/11 and witness of the urban expansion and chaos that followed in his hometown Brooklyn (NY), Monogenis started focusing on buildings as living creatures. Through these “portraits”, the artist questions the temporary and ephemeral, exploring the beauty inherent in development and decay.

In this body of works, realized during the stay of the artist in Nisyros, nature and architecture are more closely related and integrated, in a positive interaction, without challenging each other. “Nikia” literally and emotionally portrays his working and living situation, while works such as “Fault of Egress” or “Paxia” show how Monogenis has been influenced by the island’s dramatic elevations and the Nysirian wind.

Dean Monogenis was born in New York in 1973. He attended Skidmore College and is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently resides and works in Brooklyn, NY. Major solo exhibitions of Monogenis’ work have been presented at Pace University, NY; Stux Gallery, NY; Morgan Lehman Gallery, NY; Collette Blanchard Gallery, NY; and the Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. In addition, his work has been featured in group exhibitions such as: “Recent Acquisitions” at the Federal Reserve Board, Washington; “Reconstructing Nature” at the Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, New Jersey; “Future Tense” at the Neuberger Museum, NY; “Lost Horizon” at the Herter Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and “Beautiful Dreamer” at the Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, OH. Monogenis has also exhibited in New York at the Riva Gallery, Annina Nosei Gallery, Elga Wimmer Gallery, Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, and Antonio Battaglia Arte Contemporanea in Milan, Italy.