elliott templeton fine arts
ARTISTS EXHIBITIONS NEWS INFORMATION
Hello: Paintings, 1980-1990
Curated by Evan Lincoln
January 18 - March 2, 2025
Elliott Templeton Fine Arts is delighted to announce a solo exhibition by the artist Dana Garrett. This presentation comprises a decade of work by the artist from 1980-1990, including painting and sculpture. Our presentation is the first exhibition of Garrett's work since 1987 and has been curated by Evan Lincoln.
Dana Garrett was born in Los Angeles in 1953 and spent his childhood and adolescence between California and Connecticut. In the mid-seventies, Garrett lived in San Francisco, where he entered a milieu of artists that included Arch Connelly and Roberto Juarez. After a few years, the artists gravitated towards New York—Garrett and Juarez each presented their first solo exhibitions at Robert Miller Gallery in the 1980-81 season. Also exhibiting at Robert Miller was Dana’s younger brother, Jedd Garet (Dana modified the spelling of his surname from Garet to Garrett to avoid confusion with his brother). In 1981, Dana and Jedd, as well as Juarez and Connelly, were included in the landmark exhibition New York/New Wave at P.S.1., curated by Diego Cortez, credited with launching the careers of the preeminent Eighties superstars Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
In these early exhibitions, Garrett introduced an iconography of objects and creatures from a shadowy realm—skeletons, jack-o’-lanterns, architectural forms, and planets in orbit—articulated in a dusky grisaille. His muted palette and memento mori imagery unmistakably thematize the representation of death as a totalizing cultural and psychological force. As noted by artist and close friend David Carrino, these pieces are not marked by bleakness, as the inclusion of Hallows’ Eve characters makes apparent, where Garrett’s deadpan slips through: "they approach this uncomfortable subject with an unusually disarming lightness of spirit and subtle humor." Amid the vibrant and boisterous artwork indicative of the Eighties wave of “Neo-Expressionism,” Garrett adopted a more gothic and introspective form of expression.
Garrett produced this work in his 42nd Street studio, in a building shared with fellow artists David Carrino, James Brown, Philip Taaffe, and Donald Baechler. He maintained a particular mise en scène in this space, where the untamed display of colossal sheets of raw canvas pinned to the wall contrasted his luxurious self-presentation, as detailed by Carrino: "In his velvet slippers, hand-tailored pants, and silk ascot, Garrett himself appears as elegant, seductive and displaced as one of his own images of dancing skeletons or black butterflies."
In the mid-eighties, he began exhibiting at Tracey Garet Gallery in the East Village. He was included in the 1984 exhibition An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, curated by Kyanston McShine, as well as The End of the World at the New Museum, curated by Bill Olander in 1985. Garrett’s final solo exhibition was presented at The Space in Houston, Texas in 1987.
Dana Garrett died in December 1991 of AIDS-related complications.
Dana Garrett was born in Los Angeles in 1953 and spent his childhood and adolescence between California and Connecticut. In the mid-seventies, Garrett lived in San Francisco, where he entered a milieu of artists that included Arch Connelly and Roberto Juarez. After a few years, the artists gravitated towards New York—Garrett and Juarez each presented their first solo exhibitions at Robert Miller Gallery in the 1980-81 season. Also exhibiting at Robert Miller was Dana’s younger brother, Jedd Garet (Dana modified the spelling of his surname from Garet to Garrett to avoid confusion with his brother). In 1981, Dana and Jedd, as well as Juarez and Connelly, were included in the landmark exhibition New York/New Wave at P.S.1., curated by Diego Cortez, credited with launching the careers of the preeminent Eighties superstars Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
In these early exhibitions, Garrett introduced an iconography of objects and creatures from a shadowy realm—skeletons, jack-o’-lanterns, architectural forms, and planets in orbit—articulated in a dusky grisaille. His muted palette and memento mori imagery unmistakably thematize the representation of death as a totalizing cultural and psychological force. As noted by artist and close friend David Carrino, these pieces are not marked by bleakness, as the inclusion of Hallows’ Eve characters makes apparent, where Garrett’s deadpan slips through: "they approach this uncomfortable subject with an unusually disarming lightness of spirit and subtle humor." Amid the vibrant and boisterous artwork indicative of the Eighties wave of “Neo-Expressionism,” Garrett adopted a more gothic and introspective form of expression.
Garrett produced this work in his 42nd Street studio, in a building shared with fellow artists David Carrino, James Brown, Philip Taaffe, and Donald Baechler. He maintained a particular mise en scène in this space, where the untamed display of colossal sheets of raw canvas pinned to the wall contrasted his luxurious self-presentation, as detailed by Carrino: "In his velvet slippers, hand-tailored pants, and silk ascot, Garrett himself appears as elegant, seductive and displaced as one of his own images of dancing skeletons or black butterflies."
In the mid-eighties, he began exhibiting at Tracey Garet Gallery in the East Village. He was included in the 1984 exhibition An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, curated by Kyanston McShine, as well as The End of the World at the New Museum, curated by Bill Olander in 1985. Garrett’s final solo exhibition was presented at The Space in Houston, Texas in 1987.
Dana Garrett died in December 1991 of AIDS-related complications.
Oil on canvas
30 x 50 in.
Oil on canvas
19 x 46½ in.
Oil on canvas
19 x 41 in.
Oil on Canvas
22 ½ x 42 ½ in.
Oil on canvas
48 x 18 in.
Oil on canvas
15 ¼ x 15 ¼ in.
Oil on canvas
8¼ x 12¼ in.
Oil on canvas
15 ¼ x 15 ¼ in.