FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Franklin Evans: watermoreorless
March 2007
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 1, 5:30-7:30 PM
Gallery Hours: Tuesday � Saturday, 10:30-5:30 PM
Email: info@gregorylindgallery

In the work of painter, Franklin Evans, intuition and logic conspire in imagined "dreamlandscapes" where color, perspective, form, and scale coalesce to create eloquent byways through constantly shifting spaces. In Evans� realm, gravity-defying salvos of color are created by converging branches of watercolor and ink. His unlocatable worlds evoke the concept of "moreorless," straddling a place between drawing and painting, the figurative and the literal, and narrative and non-narrative representation.

While abrupt shifts in a painting�s visual space allow incongruous worlds to exist on contiguous planes (sometimes even becoming swallowed and transformed by each other), Evans� densely-worked, saturated panels exude a controlled chaos. The pieces may seem to be dominated by abstraction, but they are also strongly rooted in a whimsical romanticism that lends the images a dreamy, nostalgic quality. Water is the ambiguous center of Evans� series. "FF everythinguwant" features a medley of surreal organic forms peppered by the possibility of abstraction, as a shallow lagoon flows indifferently below the fantastical pandemonium. In "FF watermoreorless," a burst of unnatural, confection-like colors boldly asserts its local independence while dutifully establishing the structure of the fabricated waterscape of unearthly delights.

Evans has described his process as "akin to solving a complex math problem, with the random marks and paint happenings as variables that must be added, multiplied, subtracted, divided, derived from, and integrated to find unique visual solutions." As the theme and situation of each piece is not self-evident but rather, carried to the viewer by association and allusion, animals, figures, natural and manmade structures, and concealed spaces gradually emerge upon subsequent viewings. As a result, each viewing is a unique experience unto itself, ensuring that meaning unravels at the very place where explanations can be found.

Franklin Evans was born in Reno, NV and currently lives and works in New York City. He received his BA from Stanford University and his MFA from the University of Iowa. His recent solo exhibitions include: play/work/space, Katherine Mulherin Projects, Toronto, Canada, 2006; and freakout, Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York, NY, 2005. His work has also been included in recent group exhibitions at The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; Artenova-Fuoriuso, Pescara, Italy; and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA. Evans� collections include the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.