May 8, 2012
Reader, living in is New York is tough. I’m talking less in the standard oh-my-god-why’s-my-rent-so-high-and-why-do-all-my-friends-think-that-splitting-a-giant-birthday-dinner-bill-where-everyone-got-tequila-shots-but-me-makes-any-sense-at-all way, and more in the there’s-a-lot-of-cool-ass-shit-going-on-in-this-city-and-I’m-too-old-to-keep-up-and-kind-of-want-to-stay-home-and-catch-up-on-Mad-Men way. Do you feel us?
Lucky for us, that crotchety old man kind of mentality left us un-afflicted on the closing day of New York artist George Boorujy‘s recent show at the East Village gallery, P • P • O • W.
Boorujy’s show, Blood Memory, was the artist’s second solo exhibition at the gallery and it focused largely on confronting our relationship with the natural world, especially with sentient animals. Far from depicting animals in a sentimental manner, Boorjuy instead places them in stark, dramatic environments or positions them in strikingly confrontational poses for the viewer, imbuing them with recognizably ‘human’ expression.
But, regardless of the positioning or actions in Boorujy’s pieces, his mind-numbingly realistic technique—along with the impressively large format—is what grounds the work in an eerily incomprehensible realism. From the feathers of the bird in “Babble” (above) to the pollen-dusted fur in “Fugue” (below), Boorujy is somehow able to pull forth a mystical real world in ink. From the Blood Memory press release:
Boorujy challenges the viewer to confront both the animal and their preconceived notions about it. Through their gaze an interaction evolves with the wild that otherwise would have to be sought out or birthed from happenstance. However fleeting our exchanges with the wild are, an impression of their presence marks our memories. There is something mystical at play; a silent exchange that either moves us towards awareness or heightens our fear of the unknown.
So a lesson to us and you, Reader—Mad Men‘s totally going downhill and the real world’s offers more than our imagination can even fathom, so let’s get out there and paint the town.
You can view more of Boorujy’s work on the P • P • O • W site, where you can also inquire about available pieces, and on Boorujy’s site, where you can read and interview George did with Frank Verpoorten. Above, “Babble” (38″x50″); below, “Initiate” (48″ x 53″), “Fugue” (38″ x 50″), and “Anting” (55.5″ x 108″).
