Lehmann Maupin will present an exhibition of works by Ashley Bickerton together with Sonnabend Gallery. The exhibition will include early works representing several significant periods in Bickerton's oeuvre, as well as new paintings and monotypes.
Produced for the Visiting Artists Program at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, these new works are multi-layered and include lithography, cast papers and monoprints. Some measure two inches deep, with etched pits creating the illusion of black holes around the edges, others feature embroideries, drawings, furniture and photographic montages, which have been digitally manipulated. In these works, Bickerton creates elaborate and disturbing visions through his use of hyper-real images and desolate environments. In these landscapes, idealized representations of women and children gather, while eerie green men with tropical flora antennae appear to emerge from nearby pools of water. In other works, the women and children are absent, leaving the partially submerged creatures to take center stage. Bottles, toothpaste tubes, and paint cans are among the objects pinned to these landscapes.
Ashley Bickerton was born in the West Indies in 1959. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, graduating in 1983 and continued his education in the Whitney Independent Studies Program. In the early 1980s, Bickerton emerged in the New York art world as part of the Neo-Geo artists, along with Jeff Koons, Peter Halley and Haim Steinbach. Works from this period are characterized by his use of corporate logos to suggest over-consumption by society and the harmful effects of capitalism. Bickerton has exhibited worldwide and has work in several public art collections. Recent exhibitions include the East Village USA retrospective at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and Ashley Bickerton … Just This at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute.