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Will Hutnick’s “Satellite” Exhibition Opens at Geary Contemporary
Unknown Pleasures in a Blood Red Summer, 2024. Acrylic, colored pencil, ink, marker and wax pastel on canvas. 40 in x 30 in.
Artist and curator Will Hutnick’s exhibition, “Satellite,” opens at Geary Contemporary in Millerton, NY on Saturday, February 24.
The exhibition features a selection of small and large-scale works. Hutnick’s work incorporates rubbings of found objects, stencils, and monoprinting throughout his paintings.
About the exhibit
“Hutnick’s paintings read like historic artifacts – a topographic map of time and what remains constant throughout it,” says Geary’s website. “Hutnick sources and uses flora and fauna from his immediate surroundings as stencils, pressing the plants onto a paint roller and applying them to the canvas. The immediacy of this act is apparent: the ghostly layers are both grounding and disorienting, as our memories often are. What is captured and what is lost is kismet.”
Hutnick’s pieces are thoughtfully layered with patterns and mixed mediums, including acrylic paints, ink and wax pastels, spray paint, colored pencils, and even unusual mediums such as sand.
L to R: Loose Future #1, #2, and #3, 2024. Acrylic, colored pencil, ink, marker and wax pastel on canvas. 20 in x 16 in.
“Somehow both natural and artificial, they do not compete with one another for attention, but rather orbit around one another; sometimes behind, sometimes parallel, most of the time at different speeds, vibrations, and perceived moments of time, without following a binary system. Though completely hand drafted, the glitches read almost as digital static, a bright contrast to the natural forms that ground Hutnick’s process.”
Many of Hutnick’s works resemble natural forms and are devoted to the expression of memory, passage of time, and existence.
“The work in Satellite is not fixed; it is ever-changing and moving as both our real and digital words are, revealing what we try to grasp onto and what we lose in the process,” Geary’s press release states. “Hutnick states: ‘There is something inherently queer about these glitch-type spaces that seem to be filled with potential; they’re shape-shifting, constantly reinventing themselves, not tied to the present, but rather circumnavigating both the past and the present.’”
Sun Dogs, 2024. Acrylic, colored pencil, graphite, ink, marker, spray paint and wax pastel on canvas. 60 in x 84 in.
Hutnick adds, “these combinations conjure environments that enable me to process, organize, and navigate my lived experiences and daily negotiations as a queer person.”
About Will Hutnick
Will Hutnick is based in Wassaic, NY, and Sharon, CT. He received his B.A. from Providence College in 2007 and his M.F.A. from Pratt Institute in 2011. He is also a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Painting, grant recipient from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation in 2017 and 2023 and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2016.
He has been an artist-in-residence at Vermont, Studio Center, Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences, and the Wassaic Project, among many others. Will has curated various exhibitions and his work has been featured in The New York Times and New American Paintings, among others.
He currently serves as the director of artistic programming at the Wassaic Project, a nonprofit organization that uses art and art education to foster positive social change.
“Satellite” is on display from February 24 through April 7 at Geary Contemporary in Millerton, NY. The opening reception will be held on Saturday, February 24 from 4-6pm.
Geary Contemporary
34 Main St. Millerton, NY 12546
(732) 838-4511
info@geary.nyc
geary.nyc
Left: Spooky Action #1, 2024. Acrylic, colored pencil, graphite, marker, sand and wax pastel on canvas. 28 in x 22 in. Right: Spooky Action #2, 2024. Acrylic, colored pencil, graphite, marker, sand and wax pastel on canvas. 28 in x 22 in.
