Contemporary Art Matters is pleased to present Lynton Wells, a solo exhibition of new paintings and drawings on view in the gallery January 7 – February 11, 2021. Gallery hours are Tuesday thru Thursday, 11-6, and by private and virtual appointment. For more information please visit our website at contemporaryartmatters.com or email us at [email protected].

Lynton Wells is a New York based artist who in his 40 years of making and exhibiting art remains somewhat enigmatic. He had shows in the 70’s and 80’s in prominent galleries including Andre Emmerich, Sable-Castelli and Holly Solomon Gallery. His art morphed from focusing on the real world with enormous, minimal, photographic images of his studio, to presenting a cerebral exploration of human existence in brightly hued landscapes. Despite this long history, his paintings defy an easy explanation. They address art making and the the human condition in an alternate language.

Lynton Wells landscapes offer a dystopian view with their electric trees and fishing fish. The artificially colored environments come into focus as beautiful plants are growing out of raw, razor sharp edges, with all elements seemingly alive. His paintings are futuristic, elegantly made with a frenzy of energy. Through painting, Wells’ intellect shines through as he combines fine art and high design. The images are both enticing and dangerous, balancing beauty and death. His champion, critic and curator Dave Hickey has described Wells’ work, “Simply construed, painting in the moment is seen as awaking from its long conceptual sleep, looking back to a bravura, expressionist past and looking forward to a thoughtfully designed and willfully decorative future.” Wells’ paintings “assert their autonomy by distancing themselves from the artist who made them, from the ideas that inform them and the spaces where they live. All their expressive energy, intellectual acuity and celebratory elaboration is focused on the subject of the painting itself as an object of devotion worthy of ornament.”

Born in Baltimore, MD, 1940 Wells received a B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design and a M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has exhibited extensively in the US and abroad with over 150 group and solo shows since 1970, and has work in numerous public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Dallas Museum of Art.