Leo Koenig Inc. is please to announce the opening of a solo exhibition by David Scher entitled, "ptg.". David Scher's vision finds its way on to many surfaces: canvas, paper, photo prints, and video screens. A prolific and multi faceted artist, David Scher's output is profuse, and varied, striking a teetering balance between the everyday and the extraordinary, oftentimes exposing both qualities in the same obscure character or situation. Disparate elements emerge, as fragmentary as memory. Muted colors, gestures that gently seduce, all coalesce, imbued with an irrational humor, a dadaist absurdity. Yet secreted within this approach, a more solemn undertone reveals itself. A succinct melancholy punctuates a picture but avoids corroding into sentimentality

There is an intimacy which is revealed in increments. Segued between ephemeral mark-making and an incredibly nimble hand, phrases, lists, and words that are crossed out and gone over again, are scattered throughout Scher's drawings and paintings. One might perceive this as an attempt at a more direct communication, however, Scher's use of words usually brings up more questions than it answers, challenging the viewer to varying interpretations and shifting linguistic doppelgangers.

David Scher approaches art-making in a similar manner that a poet may approach writing. Much like the way a poet may choose a word for its sound, Scher may choose an image for its visual echo, its intrinsic ability to induce a memetic effect. Other elements are chosen for their congruence, or lack thereof, to the elements preceding it. Meanings are hinted at, filtered through layers of individual experience. Scher delivers his visual vocabulary in precisely this way. We are drawn to a piece by our own visceral reaction, to the breeze of familiarity that brushes against us, only to disappear just as suddenly.

In fact, David Scher has a background that has never been confined to the visual arts. A musician and published poet as well as a visual artist, Scher's work reveals not so much a breaking down of boundaries as much as synthesis of experiences and emotions, creating a geography where ethereality and substance logistically coincide.

This particular body of work has been produced over the past year in new multiple studio spaces, including an 19th century general store and barns, on Scher's property in Delaware County. The scale of these workrooms and of the landscape outside is reflected in the work itself: oversized drawings, 5 × 7 foot oils and wallfuls of massed multi-media works. The subjects of these pieces include (individually and collectively) policemen, bouquets of flowers, football players, clowns, abstractions that convey a sense of deep snow, shovels and plows, TV glow….

David Scher has been producing, performing and exhibiting work for over 20 years. He has shown at spaces such as , P.S. 1 and the Brooklyn Museum. He most recently has had solo exhibitions at Museo Des Artes, Guadalajara, Mexico, and Roberts Tilton in Los Angeles. A catalogue with essays by Aaron Kunin and Brian Dewan will be published by Leo Koenig Inc. during the course of the exhibition.

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