Silence, Like a Thought: Michael De Feo

Hexton Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition featuring the latest body of work by New York-based artist Michael De Feo. In his second solo presentation at the gallery, De Feo introduces a new collection of oil paintings that build upon his roots as a street artist while illuminating a new path.  Contemplation emerges here as the unlikely product of spontaneity.  Chaos and control push and pull against one another to find a remarkably peaceful resting place within the infinite layers of De Feo’s sprawling canvases. 

Michael has always understood the power of unpredictability and change. In his early days, these ideas manifested themselves on the streets of major cities across the world as he pursued an artistic activism designed to bring beauty and whimsy to dense urban environments.  The artist would transform one’s experience in the world through simple, graphic depictions of flowers that would contrast urban grit with a pure sense of joy.  

After decades of surveying the theme of flowers in various, distinct bodies of work, De Feo more recently began pushing the boundaries of both medium and content.  The new use of oil paints allows an ability to create complex, layered surfaces that draw us in and question not just beauty and joy as we know them, but invite an exploration further into the underlying depths of their origin.  De Feo is no longer painting atop found images.  His acrylic washes here have supplanted appropriated photography as the underlying image and act as a springboard into new realms. The resulting works reach deeper into abstraction with a color and depth often suggestive of our natural world.

In Silence, Like A Thought, De Feo summons the unknown as well as the familiar, where peripheral memories sparkle and shine. The artist pushes beyond these transitory and fleeting moments to ask, if we were to plumb the depths of our lives more deeply, what would we find buried in these infinite layers?

This is De Feo’s first solo exhibition of works in this medium.