DAN GLUIBIZZI : You Don’t Have to be Alone Tonight

CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions is pleased to present You Don’t Have to be Alone Tonight, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Dan Gluibizzi, on view from November 6 - December 19, 2015. The gallery will host an opening reception on Friday, November 6, from 7-9pm.

The title of painter Dan Gluibizzi’s latest body of work, You Don’t Have to Be Alone Tonight, is drawn from a Christmas Eve listserve posting for a sex theater in Portland, Oregon. The reference deftly captures the nature of Gluibizzi’s creative practice, which centers on amateur adult content imagery culled from myriad online sources.

In this series, the artist explores online interactions as they trace a metaphoric line to constellations. As heavenly formations once connected and confounded observers, so internet and social media now receive and display our hopes and fears through the ether, to points often unknown.

Gluibizzi eliminates the spatial referents when rendering the subjects he finds engaged in erotic acts. Through watercolor—a medium generally associated with the ease and innocence of children’s art—his subjects form a tangle of limbs that accrue a distinct visual presence through color and formal repetition. The figures, cut from their digital platform, are re-imagined in a decidedly analog method, bringing human touch to the digital world.

You Don’t Have to be Alone Tonight arouses complex questions about the nature of communication and intimacy. Beyond wondering who these anonymous actors are, Gluibizzi’s practice spurs us to consider how online communication informs or hinders our taste for direct contact.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Dan Gluibizzi (b. 1971, Kentucky) lives and works in Portland, Oregon. He has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Texas Contemporary, (Houston); Western Exhibitions (Chicago), Ampersand Gallery, (Portland); Kopeikin Gallery and Jack Hanley, (Los Angeles), Postmasters, (New York) and Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien (Berlin). He holds an MFA from University of Cincinnati, Ohio.