Howard Fonda: Nothing to Live Up To

Nothing to Live Up To was a solo exhibition dedicated to recent paintings by Howard Fonda. The selection of paintings on view concentrated on the interdependent relationships between nature, existence and time, examining the perpetual wonder, hope and heartache that is inherent to all life.

Nothing to Live Up To holds suspect our overly commercial, superficial and constructed “world”, and boldly aims beyond toward truth. Fonda has developed a large body of work over the past several years that delves into transcendental thought with a vibrant palette and complex perspective. Using a direct process called alla prima, oil paint is applied wet into wet to the canvas in one sitting. This directness offers a tension and immediacy similar to the process of drawing. For Fonda, the formal qualities of painting – the emphasis on color, line, shape and texture – are equally as important as the conceptual elements being interpreted on the canvas.

  • February 17, 2008 – May 4, 2008
  • Gallery 5
(I Think I’m Who I Think I Am) Something Missing Something Found, 2006, Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches
(I Think I’m Who I Think I Am) Something Missing Something Found, 2006, Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches

About Howard Fonda

Howard Fonda is an artist and educator currently teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he received an MFA in Painting and Drawing in 2001. His work has been collected by the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) and the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, to name a few. In addition to numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally, Fonda has had recent solo exhibitions at duchess (Chicago) and Mixed Greens (New York) galleries.

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