Javits Center, 429 11th Ave, New York, NY, Booth P1
September 8-10, 2023 (Preview — September 7, 2023)
Alexander Berggruen is pleased to present new paintings by Gabriel Mills at The Armory Show 2023. Please visit us at Booth P1 in the Javits Center, New York, NY.
Show Dates & Times
Thursday, September 7, 2023: VIP Preview, 11 am-7 pm
Friday, September 8, 2023: 11 am-7 pm
Saturday, September 9, 2023: 11 am-7 pm
Sunday, September 10, 2023: 11 am-6 pm
Location
Booth P1
Javits Center
429 11th Ave
New York, NY 10001.
Gabriel Mills in the studio, New Haven, CT, 2023. Photo: Rachel Kwon
Paul D’Agostino, PhD has summed Mills’s focus as on “a number of thematic concerns that converge at the crux of his painterly practice, namely time, humility, allegory, transformation, transcendence, rebirth, and spirituality.” The action of painting—to construct, to remove; to add weight, to make light—becomes symbolic in Mills’s work. The artist begins with thick broad layers of paint that he then refines into shorter gestures and precise color arrangements, resulting in topographical surfaces that balance texture and atmosphere, becoming simultaneously celestial and terrestrial as their form and colors approach ascendency while the physicality of the paint keeps them grounded.
Occasionally working within the structure of triptychs, Mills employs unconventional ratios to create dissonance through opposition, thus compelling a viewer to slow down. Although the panels feel continuous due to the lack of space between them, these rifts in compositions and the suffocated space between them act as abrupt events of change. Indeed, Mills ascribes events as the most significant markers and indicators of one’s experience of “time.” The juxtapositions in Mills’s triptychs evoke time, presence, and non-linear narrative through a conventionally devotional format with art historical ties to religious paintings of trios.
Unrecognizable titles arise from a linguistic exercise Mills would explore while working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a museum security guard. During his contemplative hours of sketching and watching, Mills began selecting words from the museum displays and rearranging them according to their formal properties. The artist continues his exploration of understanding as he builds and revises his paintings in a gesture of deep reflection. This mindful, tenacious approach to painting is a devotional practice. Speaking about the role of faith in his work, Mills stated: “Each mark is a thought, each thought is a mark. Painting is an extension and affirmation of my being.”
For additional information and images, please contact the gallery at info@alexanderberggruen.com. You can also find more information about the fair on The Armory Show website.
Gabriel Mills in the studio, New Haven, CT, 2023. Photo: Rachel Kwon
This solo booth follows the gallery’s solo show with the artist Gabriel Mills: Butterfly March (October 19-November 19, 2022) and Mills’s inclusion in the gallery’s group show Elana Bowsher, Vicente Matte, Gabriel Mills (June 2-July 14, 2021).
Gabriel Mills (b. 1992, New Rochelle, NY) received an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT and a BFA in Illustration and Art History from the University of Hartford, Hartford, CT. Recent solo exhibitions include TIDSOPTIMIST, Micki Meng, San Francisco, CA and Butterfly March, Alexander Berggruen, New York, NY. His work has been featured in group exhibitions including Walk Against The Wind, presented by Micki Meng and Parker Gallery; Expanding the Collections, New York Historical Society, New York, NY; Black Abstractionists: From Then Til’ Now, curated by Dexter Wimberly, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX; Durian On The Skin, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, CA; Ultralight Beam, Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY; Employee Exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Elana Bowsher, Vicente Matte, Gabriel Mills, Alexander Berggruen, New York, NY. Mills’s work will be included in Descendants at the K11 Musea, Hong Kong, CN (September 1-September 17, 2023). In 2021, he was an artist in residence at MASS MoCA. The artist’s work is held in public collections including: The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; The Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX; New York Historical Society, New York, NY; Museu Inima De Paula, Minas Gerais, Brazil; and X Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing, CH. Mills lives and works in New Haven, CT.
For additional information and images, please contact the gallery at info@alexanderberggruen.com. You can also find more information about the fair on The Armory Show website.
On the other side of the floor stood Alexander Berggruen’s booth, this year reserved entirely for the artist Gabriel Mills. Berggruen hosted a solo show for Mills last fall, where the best work on display consisted of massive triptychs. The canvases of each triptych in the fall show alternated between thinly painted depictions of airy subjects, such as clouds, and canvases covered in inches of thick impasto. The idea, which is to generate a balance between the lightweight and heavy elements, was interesting then, but Mills has since taken it to another level.
At the Armory, Mills’s Glass and the Ghost Children (2023), a massive diptych, served as the gallery’s centerpiece. It’s electric. In his prior work, Mills conjured interplay by juxtaposing heavy canvases against light ones. Now, that interaction occurs as well within each frame. Weightless currents of oil swirl and stream through their dense counterparts, the former lifting the canvas, the latter bringing it down; an equilibrium is achieved that makes the piece appear to float, suspended in midair. The smaller Ohenguai (2023) and Thira (2023) prove potent too.
Highlighting the diversity during Armory Week, Conrad Woody, a D.C.-based art collector, noted his appreciation for the Norman Lewis show at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery and Gabriel Mills’s solo booth at Alexander Berggruen.
