New York City based Titus Kaphar cuts, bends, sculpts and actually mixes the work of classic and renaissance painters to create new stories.
“I’ve always been fascinated by history: art history, American history, world history, individual history – how history is written, recorded, distorted, exploited, reimagined, and understood. In my work I explore the materiality of reconstructive history. I paint and I sculpt, often borrowing from the historical canon, and then alter the work in some way. I cut, crumple, shroud, shred, stitch, tar, twist, bind, erase, break, tear, and turn the paintings and sculptures I create, reconfiguring them into works that nod to hidden narratives and begin to reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history. Open areas become active absences, walls enter into the portraits, stretcher bars are exposed, and structures that are typically invisible underneath, behind, or inside the canvas are laid bare, revealing the interiors of the work. In so doing, my aim is to perform what I critique, to reveal something of what has been lost, and to investigate the power of a rewritten history,” says Kaphar of his work.
Born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, he currently lives and works between New York and Connecticut, USA. His artworks interact with the history of art by approriating its styles and mediums. Kaphar cuts, bends, sculpts and mixes the work of Classic and Renaissance painters, creating formal games and new tales between fiction and quotation.
His work is currently visible at the Jack Shainman Gallery for an exhibition entitled “Drawing The Blinds”.
