Danny Ferrell goes into the closet with his friends and finds things for them to wear in what will become large oil portraits bursting with color and vitality. Comfortable in their clothes, in themselves, in their relationships, and often with their companionable dogs, they radiate a beauty that is often unconventional. Ferrell says, “These are my friends and people that I have an emotional resonance with. I want to put positive images of gay men and queer-identifying individuals into the world, so we can diversify the often tragic canon of LGBTQ film and art.”
I Kiss Boys, oil on canvas, 84 x 60"He looks to the magic realists of the Paul Cadmus circle, notably the dream-like work of George Tooker, as well as the expressively colorful portraits of Chicago artist Ed Paschke.
Like Paschke he extols color. “Color is incredibly important to me,” he explains, “so much so that I see color asserting itself as a secondary or tertiary character in the painting—a component with as much life and vitality as the figures I am depicting. Color also allows my work to have a particular sense of mood and creates and indeterminate sense of time and place.”
Touch-Up, oil on canvas, 84 x 60"
The Farmer’s Son, oil on canvas, 80 x 68"
His figures appear contemporary but emerge from landscapes below skies that could be from any period of art, as if their current presence has a long past and an indeterminate future. Queer people are often seen as Other. Ferrell confounds the perception by crafting impeccable high-gloss, reflective surfaces for his paintings that briefly make the viewer part of the painting, in the same realm as the subject.
Danny Ferrell in his studio. Portrait by Tom Little. Courtesy Danny Ferrell and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.
In his painting I Kiss Boys, his friend wears a green T-shirt that proclaims the fact. The green contrasts with his magenta hair and calls attention to the bouquet of flowers on the bicycle’s rear rack. The crescent moon often symbolizes love as well as life and death. The floral bouquet recalls Flora, the Roman goddess of spring. Even without the proclamation of his T-shirt, the boy exudes confidence in himself in all his complexity. —
Miles McEnery Gallery
520 W. 21st Street
New York, NY 10011 • (212) 445-0051
www.milesmcenery.com
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