Beastly So and So

Solange Knopf Magie Blanche, 2015 Colored pencil on Kraft paper 19.5 x 27.25 inches 49.5 x 69.2 cm SoK 80

Noviadi Angkasapura Untitled, 2015 Ball point pen on paper 11.6 x 8.25 inches 29.5 x 21 cm NoA 194

constellation Delphinus

Sufi Latinus (Latin translation of ‘Kitāb al-kawākib al-thābita’ of ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Ṣūfī), Bologna 1250-1275

Intervención sobre “desechos plásticos”, calas escondidas del mediterráneo.

Intervention on “ plastic waste ” , hidden coves of the Mediterranean .

Gregory Van Maanen

b. 1947

Self-taught artist Gregory Van Maanen began to paint and draw following his return from Vietnam and discharge from the Army. A bullet remains lodged in his chest from wounds suffered during the war. He was and continues to be tortured by memories of Vietnam and suffers from post-traumatic shock. Driven to create, his body of work includes over a thousand paintings, 2,400 small drawings, various objects and small sculptures. It is through his art that Van Maanen attempts to exorcise his demons. During 2006, Gregory Van Maanen made a life decision to move from his Paterson, NJ apartment to upstate New York where he purchased a home and could be close to nature. Since then his works have been acquired and shown in a variety of venues, most significant amongst them being the Kohler Foundation, which initially acquired his entire body of work in 2007.

In his essay “Gregory Van Maanen; The Wolf Survives,” Randall Morris writes:

“Gregory Van Maanen’s paintings rediscuss the amulet possessing powers of pure art.  He finds and separates out the occult integrities of symbols long considered cliched and useless and raises them from their impotency.  His outlook is tough.  His is a feral forgiveness.  The veteran has survived his anger, gone through the questions with no answers, and has become old enough and wise enough to crack through the fear and loathing with answers of his own.  The dead have become buried in the kinder shrouds of memories and the bitter mists they died in have begun to dissipate.”