Mary Boone Gallery presents at its Chelsea location an exhibition of paintings by ED PASCHKE. The works range in date from 1969 to 2004, the year Paschke died at age sixty-five in his native Chicago.

Perhaps the best known of the informal group that came to be known as the Chicago Imagists, Paschke early in his career developed an unmistakable style, aligning a fascination with popular culture to his idiosyncratic inner vision. Like the Pop artists centered in New York City, he found inspiration in visual media - movie posters, magazines, film, television - and the hyper-colored palette and graphics of advertising. Rather than advancing Pop's playful optimism, however, Paschke addressed the marginal, illicit, fetishistic, and slightly menacing to expose the discontent of a society in transformation. 

Paschke's painted surfaces anticipate the pixilated effect of video or digital illustration. His subjects appear bathed in intense light, their contours often diffusing into layers suffused with pulses, flares and electromagnetic waves. The preponderance of closely cropped view of faces heightens the impression of urgent news images flashing across a screen. Color as well is instrumental to the stupefying effect of Paschke's work: hot acid yellows, pinks, and oranges, neon blues and greens, wash the figures while backgrounds buzz with vibrant, intricate patterning. 

*image (left)
Ed Paschke
Night Sweat, 2003
oil on canvas, 36"x50"
courtesy of Mary Boone Gallery