Barnaby Furnas (b.’73) grew up a teenage graffiti artist at a Quaker-based commune in Philadelphia. After graduate school, he burst onto the art scene with paintings depicting American Civil War battles infused with a cartoon sensibility: riots of motion and pigment evoke violent blood splatters, dismemberments, and attention-grabbing “retinal sizzle.” Furnas deftly merges his conflation of fantasy and history with his formalist concerns of material realism and a guerilla misuse of watercolor. From portraits of well-to-do nicotine addicts to epic-sized landscapes of floods of blood to the escalating energy of rock concerts, Furnas conjures states of ecstasy as both joy and agony. Barnaby has an BFA from the School of Visual Arts (’95) and an MFA from Columbia University (’00)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDYspQej9g0[/youtube]
Barnaby Furnas speaks about the end of everything, blood, and beauty
The Singer, 2011
Water dispersed pigments, colored pencil, seral transfer and acrylic on linen
43 7/8″ x 36 7/8″
Heart Fucker (Effigy X-XIII), 2006
Dye, bleach, spit, ink, graphite, photocopy on soiled, punctured, crumpled burnt and folded paper
8 1/2″ x 11 1/4″
Untitled (battlescene), 2004
Mixed media on linen
110″ x 156″
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGlYGURtAnw[/youtube]
Barnaby Furnas pouring, misting, and sweeping paint
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