Gypsy Wagon

Justin Adian & Wendy White

January 14 – February 25, 2017

CAPITAL is proud to begin 2017 in a new location at 26 Lilac Street, with Gypsy Wagon, a two-person exhibition of new work by Justin Adian and Wendy White. Longtime friends in constant dialogue, creating work that is autobiographical, pop cultural, and art-historical, Justin Adian and Wendy White push the boundary of what painting is today.

For this exhibition, Justin Adian and Wendy White balance the content-driven and formal-based aspects of country music as their jumping off point. Rarely associated with contemporary art, country music often looks to, and is inspired by simpler times, taking its roots from Appalachian folk music, and the Blues. Dolly Parton has been a key figure in the country music world since 1967. As a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actress, author, businesswoman, and philanthropist, Parton navigated a predominantly male dominated area by being both authentic and synthetic.

Justin Adian was born in Fort Worth Texas and raised on country music, which has been an inspiring aspect for many of his artworks and exhibitions. Adian has always been attracted to 1970's visual culture—a time when psychedelia faded, and the visual language stepped back into the more domestic aesthetics of the 1950's. Adian’s work straddles the theoretical divide between painting and sculpture. Inspired by Parton’s strong personal aesthetic and the imagery that surrounds her life and persona, Adian’s creates three-dimensional wall- mounted forms, based on the graphic elements from Dolly’s tour bus, Gypsy Wagon. Adian’s paintings embody a pioneering, if not punk rock spirit, demonstrating an irreverence, looseness, and playfulness in their rebellious composition and unexpected colors.

Part of a larger body of work entitled “Portraits,” which celebrate powerful female figures, Wendy White uses 1970’s and 80’s photographs of Dolly Parton as the basis for a large multi-panel painting titled It’s Hard To Be A Diamond In A Rhinestone World, 2016. White drains the color from the found imagery, adding blue as both as a formal device (fades) and also a utilitarian reference to expectations of women performers (eye-shadow). In one of the images, Dolly is wearing a jean jacket, which is a signature look that adds an aura of authenticity; her jackets are often bedazzled with tons of synthetic glam. Also included in the exhibition are three works made from oversize men’s denim jeans, titled Cowboy Killers. In a nod to a certain slice of Dolly’s masculine fan base, White uses traditional "cowboy killers" like cigarettes, alcohol, and chewing tobacco to talk about how your style of jeans and what you carry in your pockets are forms of identity and branding.