Andrew Sendor: Saturday's Ascent

New York, NY – 21 March 2017: Sperone Westwater is pleased to present Andrew Sendor: Saturday’s Ascent, an exhibition of twelve paintings accompanied by an audio narration. This is the artist’s third solo show with the gallery.

Sendor’s work is characterized by a meticulous draftsmanship that serves to illuminate his ongoing engagement with the interrelation of photorealism and invented narrative structures. The artist introduces us to a group of fictional characters in a storyline whose genesis derives from a unique creative process: Sendor scripted, produced, directed, and documented a series of performances recounting the life and times of his eccentric cast. These performances ultimately become the basis for the paintings and audio component. The continuously looped audio narration envelops the viewer and offers clarifying details inextricably linked to the paintings’ subject matter.

Sendor’s story revolves around a young woman called Saturday, a free-spirited professional mountain climber and horse trainer. A disjunctive sequence of events, stemming from her mysterious disappearance on a climbing expedition at Watkins Range in Greenland, leads her family and friends to presume the worst. Sendor's portrayals electrify the psychological drama of Saturday’s memories, relationships, and prophesies.

The blue, monochromatic palette in several of Sendor’s recent paintings represents an evolution from the artist’s signature black and white paintings. His interest in the physicality and materiality of his paintings is increasingly demonstrated by their presentation. These meticulously painted works are executed in oil on matte white Plexiglass and presented in purposeful artist frames or occasionally on shelves.

Born in 1977, Andrew Sendor currently lives and works in New York City. In 2016, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University held a solo survey of his work in the exhibition ANDREW SENDOR Paintings, Drawings and a Film which was accompanied by a catalogue featuring an essay by Caitlin Doherty. He has presented solo gallery exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and Copenhagen. His works have been included in numerous museum exhibitions, including the Funen Art Museum, Odense, Denmark; Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY; Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; and the ARKEN Museum of Art, Ishøj, Denmark. In 2014, Sendor mounted a solo exhibition in conjunction with his residency at The Wright Museum, Beloit College. His works are in private and public collections worldwide, including The Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum, MSU, and The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

Andrew Sendor: Saturday’s Ascent is on view at Sperone Westwater from 30 March – 29 April 2017.