Bruno David is pleased to present "Lumen", an exhibition by artist William Conger. This will be Conger’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.
William Conger’s abstract paintings have always explored the blended zone linking reality and imagination or the shift from representation to symbolization. His precise compositions of rectilinear and rounded geometric shapes, animated or subdued by flat or shaded colors, seem to exist in a paradoxical and shallow space. They suggest ambiguous real-world identities but always remain anonymous and therefore become symbols of amorphous and private feeling.
Conger writes, “My recent paintings allude to the conditions of Night and Day in both Nature and inner experience. Now I prefer the allusion to be more emphatic, to Lumen as subjective enlightenment or luminance. Although my shapes and colors on painted surfaces borrow from worldly facts, sunlight, shadow, objects, and events, they bring to light what’s hidden in memory. They stir our feelings and symbolize the continuing reinvention of meaning and self.”
William Conger lives and works in Chicago, IL. He earned a B.F.A. from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM in 1960 and an M.F.A. from the University of Chicago in 1966. His work has been exhibited extensively and is represented in numerous museum collections, including: The Art Institute of Chicago; Chicago IL; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Chicago IL; The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, East Lansing MI; The Indianapolis Museum of Art (Newfields), Indianapolis, IN; The Wichita Art Museum, Wichita KS; Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA; The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison WI; Illinois State Museum, Springfield IL; Mary and Leigh Block Museum, Northwestern University, Evanston IL; De Paul University Art Museum, Chicago IL; Loyola University Art Museum, Chicago IL; Tarble Museum, Eastern Illinois University Art Museum, Charleston IL; The University of New Mexico Art Museum (the Jonson Collection), Albuquerque, NM; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN. William Conger is professor emeritus of art theory and practice at Northwestern University. In conjunction with the exhibition, Bruno David Gallery will publish a catalogue of the artist’s work with an in-depth exhibition history and bibliography.
