Office Baroque Gallery

In Aaron Bobrow's first solo show, No Sleep in the Exit Row, industrial tarps, both new and used, are stretched on traditional painting supports. Bobrow uses the heavy-duty plastic sheets, that can be consistently located all the way from suburban back yards to construction sites to impoverished third world villages in order to investigate the history of the monochrome and the ready made. When moved from the outdoors to the studio and finally into the gallery space, the tarps display on their surface an exact record of their past. The provenance and functional history is unknown to the viewer, leaving nothing to hinder contemplation of the monochrome. Contrasting the tattered surfaces are brand new tarps purchased over the Internet. Rather than meticulously creating a flat monochrome surface with conventional materials, the artists uses the new industrial surfaces to produce monochromatic works rich with textures and seams, evident of industrial production. Over time, the fresh surfaces acquire subtle signs of use through shipping and handling, studio production and gallery installation. Unused in the traditional means of the tarp, these tarps now shield the paintings support.