Cris Worley Fine Arts is pleased to announce our upcoming two-person exhibition Paul Winker & Jan van der Ploeg. The exhibition will open with a reception on Saturday, August 26th, from 5-8 pm, and will run through September 30th. The gallery will host a conversation between the artists on Saturday, August 26th at 4pm. The event is free and open to the public.
Bestowing deep attention onto an object in an activated visual capacity will cast repeat viewings with a transactional yet vivid spell. Everyday commerce and unfeeling nostalgia work their desire lines around the interiors of rooms. Vaguely commercial displays exit makeshift assembly lines built with a particular yet open intent.
A common visual cue devised for utility’s ease pushes the lozenge and blip into a framework for experimentation and intuition in the works on canvas of Jan van der Ploeg. Application of color registers and skids across the prescribed format, a candid acknowledgement of the process and accident from one painting into the next.
For this exhibition, Paul Winker devised plans for his paintings by pursuing an almost monastic-like devotion to the unforeseen details of everyday life. The folds of a beloved’s blouse, a security-lined envelope, the detailing of a cereal box, a cartooned comforter. Cropped compositions blown up and rendered with precise, traced templates laid down upon the base ground. Flipping our expectations back and forth between illusory and flat formulations, altogether wily patterns amidst droll color combos. An all-consuming heat of looking, cooling into a condensed register, ready to be received anew yet again.
This late summer nexus found its beginnings in the spring a year before, with the Texan assisting the Dutchman with site specific wall paintings for the Dallas Art Fair. A camaraderie was struck, a conversation pursued, which ultimately resulted in the overlapping of dialogue via convergent forms seen here in the adjoining galleries.
Van der Ploeg’s geometric wall paintings reach back into the framework of modernist forebears, echoing graphic displays and pulling the viewer into a bold backdrop for active collaboration and conversation alike.
Oftentimes, one only needs such a platform to open up the room to new ideas that borrow and build on backstory, and what is hinted at in the details glimpsed in the paintings of both artists.
Ripe with both creative attention and deliberate execution, we share the collaborative, open spirit illuminated in the work of both artists presented here in Paul Winker & Jan van der Ploeg as the endless possibility of discovery and renewal from inspiration to resolution, standalone work to juxtaposition, artist to viewer.
Paul Winker (b. 1989) lives and works in Dallas, TX. He received his BFA in Painting and Drawing at the University of North Texas and has been included in several group exhibitions in the area, including at Goss-Michael Foundation, The Power Station, and Texas Women’s University. He has also had multiple solo and collaborative presentations at AND NOW in Dallas. In 2021, Winker was commissioned by collectors Janelle and Alden Pinnell to create an outdoor sculpture at their home, which served as the inaugural offsite project for the Nasher Public initiative. Paul Winker is an activate participant in the local art scene, often initiating creative opportunities and collaborations with artists throughout the community and beyond.
Jan van der Ploeg (1959, Amsterdam) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam and Croydon College of Art in London and was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. In 1990, Jan van der Ploeg was awarded the Royal Award for Modern Painting. He has exhibited his work extensively in both solo and group exhibitions in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Selected exhibitions include: Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; MOMA PS1, New York, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel; Kunstverein Heilbronn, Heilbronn; Von Bartha, Basel; Minus Space, New York; Sikkema Jenkins, New York; Wellington City Art Gallery, Wellington; Starkwhite, Auckland; Sumer, Tauranga; Taubert Contemporary, Berlin; Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago; Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland; Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney; Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington; Dunedin Public Art Gallery; Daimler Art Collection, Stuttgart; Ludwig Forum für Internationale kunst, Aachen; Kunst-Station, Wolfsburg; Museum of Concrete Art, Ingolstadt; Kunstmuseum der Stadt Ulm, Ulm; Mies van der Rohe Haus, Berlin; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; the Kunstmuseum in The Hague and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
In 1999 Jan van der Ploeg founded the artist-run gallery, PS projectspace in Amsterdam.
Cris Worley Fine Arts is a Dallas, Texas based contemporary art gallery located in the Dallas Design District. With over 20 years of experience, Cris Worley is dedicated to promoting innovative work by contemporary artists at various stages of their careers.