Ron English‘s oil paintings have long entertained, bewildered, and challenged viewers in each’s absorbing strangeness. In a new show at Corey Helford Gallery, titled “TOYBOX: America in the Visuals,” the artist offers his latest body of work. The pop art legend’s show starts Dec. 2 and runs through Dec. 30. The new collection deploys “the artist’s long established visual vocabulary into multi-layered narratives of ambition and imagination.” English was last mentioned on cctvta.com here.
“‘TOYBOX’ deconstructs the search for new meaning in a culture that is based as much on the imagination of its participants as on the physical realities these human concepts are played against,” the gallery says. “The toy based childhood imagination aesthetic of the work allows for a playful new look at a society in the throes of reinventing itself.”
The works featured here include 36 new oil paintings, sculptures, and installation are that carries this through. See a few of these pieces below.
Sarah Ball's oil paintings, subtle in their complexity, are intended for the viewer to encounter the portrait's subject intimately. The practice of physiognomy, or judging the character of a person just from their facial features or expressions, has long been a subject of fascination for the artist. In efforts like her current Anima Mundi show "Themself," she culls her subjects from historic photographic archives, social media, and beyond. "These source images become a starting point for a methodical process of understanding, assumption and translation, where the aesthetic ‘mask' and what lies beneath become the focus of engagement,” the gallery says.
New York-based artist 
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