Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of new paintings by Les Rogers.

In the spring of 1954, Pablo Picasso discovered a young woman, Sylvette David at a pottery studio across the street from his studio. Picasso became entranced by the young woman's classic looks and modern air. Sylvette became known as the girl with the pony tail, which to Picasso, accentuated and complimented her profile, while making her appear as a young sophisticate emerging from adolescence into womanhood. Picasso completed up to 40 portraits of Sylvette in two months ranging in style from Neo Classical to Synthetic Cubism, often with the styles overlapping.

For his exhibition at the gallery, Les Rogers is presenting a series of portraits of a contemporary teenager named Lindsey. However the nature of the artist-model relationship has shifted a great deal. Lindsey is a "virtual" model, discovered on one of the many online community sites permeating cyberspace. The artist and model have never met in person, but have only communicated online. Lindsey, like many millions of others, posts new pictures of herself weekly, along with the usual lists of favorite bands and books and the occasional blog. Here it is the individual who projects the various changing and overlapping images of themselves. It is Lindsey who allows one to witness the emergence of a young woman, determining for herself how she would like to be perceived, and how perhaps that is ever-evolving. Picasso had referred to painting as a process of "opening windows," which translates neatly to contemporary online vernacular. In essence, through this new series of paintings, Les Rogers has opened yet another window into Lindsey's life.

In this exhibition, Les Rogers sees his paintings evolving in much the same way that Lindsey's persona evolves on the web. On a surface level, this is a simple portrait show, focusing on a young woman who has captured an artist's imagination. However, within those strictures, Rogers is ruminating on the array of choices that an artist makes when approaching a work. The exhibition is an investigation of the art-making process itself, espousing the idea that part of an artist's job is to constantly reinvent himself/herself. Experimentation must be valued as much as rigor. This certainly applies to Rogers' oevre. In the past, Roger's work has ranged in stylistic choices from photo-realist to a very lyrical abstraction, often times overlapping the various styles in one work. His abstractions are often a "collection of glimpses", where images are layered atop each other, thereby moving in and out of abstraction to representation at a blink of an eye. To Rogers, the process of making art is in fact, discovering ones own language anew, every day,

Les Rogers has shown extensively in the United States and in Europe. Most recently, he has exhibited at Suzanne Tarasieve Gallery in Paris, and Karlheinz Meyer Gallery in Karlsruhe, Germany. Les Rogers lives and works in New York City.

For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.