press release
mario naves
gratitude and expectations
january 6 – february 17, 2024
catalog available
Elizabeth Harris Gallery is pleased to present Gratitude and Expectations, an exhibition of recent paintings by Mario Naves. This will be Naves’s ninth solo show with the gallery. An illustrated catalog will accompany the exhibition.
The title stems from "Mother Blues," a song by Texas musician Ray Wylie Hubbard. It's a cautionary tale about getting what you wish for and living with the consequences. But not just only living with the consequences, but recognizing the knowledge that can be gained from the detours, bad decisions and myriad surprises that come one's way.
Toward the end of the song Hubbard rambles on about his wife, his son, his band and life itself. "The days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations," he sums up, "well, I have really good days."
As Naves states in the catalog: "If Hubbard can claim Muddy Waters as a greater poet than William Blake, as he has, then let me claim Hubbard as, if not a philosophe on the order of Socrates, then a constructive guide to life. The paintings included in this exhibition derive their inspiration partly from expectations--without which, of course, there would be no art--and partly from a gratitude whose scope increases as I get older."
Naves continues to work from a variety of historical precedents, whether it be Byzantine icons, vintage comic strips, favorite films, public signage or the view outside of his Lower East Side studio.
"Max Beckmann figures into things, as does Barney Google, Doris Day and the stray picture postcard picked up in Greece. A little bit of this; a little bit of that.
"What happens to a given source as each picture develops is a mystery that keeps me on my toes and my radar tuned. On the rare occasion when that mystery achieves shape, clarity and density--well, I have really good days."
Mario Naves is a teacher, critic and curator. He is a member of the faculties at Brooklyn College, Hofstra University and Pratt Institute. Naves has taught and lectured at The Art Students League, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, The New York Studio School, Montclair University, the Ringling College of Art and Design, Rutgers University, the University of Utah and other institutions.
Naves is the recipient of awards from The National Endowment for the Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The E.D. Foundation, the George Sugarman Foundation, The City University of New York, Hofstra University and The National Academy of Design. In 2020 he was cited as a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Utah.
Articles on Naves and his art have appeared in The New York Times, Art in America, Hyperallergic, ArtCritical, The New York Sun, The New Criterion, Time Out New York, The Village Voice and other periodicals. Naves’s criticism has been published in ARTS Magazine, City Arts, Cover Magazine, The New Criterion, The New York Observer, The New York Review of Art, Slate and The Spectator World and The Wall Street Journal.
He has authored many catalogue essays and is currently a film critic for The New York Sun.
The gallery is located at 529 West 20th Street, 6th floor and is open Tuesday to Saturday 12 – 6 pm.
For further information please contact Miles Manning at 212-463-9666