Cass Cafe presents "Nature Unrepentant" new works by Gary Mayer
Throughout his career, artist Gary Mayer has straddled a fence between abstraction and figuration. His paintings take their form usually a little more bit in one direction or the other. His method of image making employs figures that emphasize shape and texture over obvious depiction. His latest works will be exhibited in a solo show entitled Nature Unrepentant at Cass Cafe in Detroit on view from March 23 through May 25, 2013.
"Right now I have a foot in the other camp, abstraction," says Mayer about the new work. "The shapes and figures are of another order, and all have a gesture and movement to them in a way that holds my interest. It is nature turned inside out -- a giddy biological experiment of parts or shapes that are split and reformed into to a playful, sexy or sometimes even a darker result," He elaborates "My influences range from Bosch and Ensor to Dr. Suess. In my paintings I use bands of color as a sort of architecture to hold together all the things going on in the image," he adds
Gary Mayer's beginnings as an artist were in Detroit. He studied at Wayne State University which at the time gave him a very quick intro to a lot of Detroit art world people that he knows to this day. While in Detroit he had many studios in places like the Farwell Building, the Zemco Textiles Building and the Bernhardt building. In 1980 he had a show with fellow artist and friend Kurt Novak that reopened the Willis Gallery on the recommendations of his friends, Detroit artists Robert Sestok and Jim Chatelain.
"I was the first of the second generation of Cass Corridor artists to show with Feigenson Gallery," Mayer recalls. "My first show there was paintings of saints of a very carnal attitude, and that show was a great success."
He moved to New York City in 1982 and has had many shows there. He most recently moved to a rural area in the Catskill Mountains of upstate NY where there is an unlikely but real Detroit connection -- John Egner, Jim Chatelain and Brenda Goodman all live very near to him.
Gary Mayer's exhibition Nature Unrepentant opens at Cass Cafe with an artist's reception on Saturday March 23 from 7 – 10 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. The exhibit remains on view through May 25, 2013. A video of Gary working on one of his paintings for the show can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/59870936
Cass Cafe is located at 4620 Cass Ave. in Detroit's Midtown, and is open seven days a week. For more information email detroit.mi@hotmail.com, visit our website casscafe.com, or like us on facebook.