Ned Vena -- 800 Numbers
October 17, 2009 - December 5, 2009

800 Numbers features a new body of work by the New York-based painter Ned Vena. The exhibition includes white enamel monochromes, a series of vinyl on aluminum panels, and three acid-etched mirrors. Over the past number of years, Vena’s work has been in close proximity to certain periods of 20th century painting. The monochromes on view at Midway bear a strong relationship with Frank Stella’s Black Paintings, particularly Die Fahne Hoch, a painting that has served as a template for abstraction in much of Vena’s work. These works are constructed through a multi-stage process in which gesso is brushed onto the surface of the linen, followed by a layer of rolled on white rustoleum, an application of vinyl stenciling, the rolling of additional layers of enamel onto the surface, and finally the removal of the vinyl. Yet the artist often refers to these paintings as “poured” paintings, emphasizing that the paint is industrial and commercial in nature, poured out of a can into a paint tray as opposed to a tube. While not directly poured onto the linen, they do have a cast quality to them, existing as rigid objects that appear to be easily duplicated. This self-restricted manner of working continues in the vinyl works on aluminum where nauseating optical fields of blue and white stripes serve as a counterpoint to the largely mute monochromes and a selection of mirrored glass lozenges that have been etched using an acid commonly used in vandalism.

Ned Vena has had recent solo exhibitions at Michael Benevento in Los Angeles, Gallery Gebruder Lehmann in Berlin and Cohan and Leslie in New York. He has also exhibited in group shows at Kunstverin Freiberg, Frac Auvergne, and Gallery Dennis Kimmerich.