One of the highlights of the Plus Gallery 2011 calendar is the solo exhibition "Blurred Vision" featuring all new drawings by Bill Amundson, one of our nation's great satirists and the state of Colorado's most genuine artistic treasure. In what can truly be considered the darkest of political times in our country's recent history, Bill Amundson pulls no punches in his depiction of society gone mad. Utilizing pencil on paper as a pure coping mechanism, along with copious doses of humor, Amundson depicts how the world looks to your average "middle-aged white dude." "Blurred Vision" demonstrates an artist working at the peak of his talent amidst a wellspring of the very absurdity that nourishes him.
Amundson has been honing a singular, remarkable career for over 30 years, a feat that is unusual considering that it's been largely outside the commercial contemporary gallery realm. "Blurred Vision" is Amundson's inaugural solo exhibition with Plus Gallery and also the first major viewing of new works by the artist since he begrudgingly left Denver in the fall of 2010 for his home state of Wisconsin. Amundson left the state seemingly at the height of his career, a year in which he had major works on view in prestigious venues like the Denver Art Museum as well as the Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin. That same year two of Amundson's recent, hard-hitting drawings were acquired by the Denver Art Museum and the CU Bolder Art Museum respectively, making him one of the only Colorado artists of active interest to those institutions. Hardly one to bask in the limelight, Bill Amundson is a pure talent compelled to draw, following a most unlikely selection of muse' that few, if any living artists would dare hold close.
Bill Amundson's debut with Plus Gallery in the 2009 group exhibition "Brave New World" marked the arrival of two distinct new directions in the artist's work. "Amundson's New Tower of Babel" was a virtuoso masterpiece, a densely packed visual update of the biblical myth for our contemporary times, chock full of universal as well as local strata and many references to the arts and culture. In it layers upon layers in perfect perspective unfold as the eyes sweep across a mountain of cultural detritus, the technical dexterity alone worth the highest of praise. Amundson further progressed the tower direction in "Teen Excavation," a work that depicts a Frankenstein figure built upon the wasteland of today's youth in equally riveting fashion, later acquired by the Denver Art Museum for their permanent collection.
The second direction that Amundson began to expand on was "Hard Times," a series that uniquely captures the economic meltdown of this century and its effects upon the common man, more specifically the landscape in which much of our population operates. This gradually morphed into another brazen, timely, and socially relevant offshoot, Amundson's "American Dickheads" series which scrutinizes an odd assortment of public figures that led to the downward spiral that so shockingly took our country by surprise. Lehman Brothers leader Richard Fuld, Goldman Sachs' CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Denver's very own Joe Nacchio are given the Amundson portrait treatment, ranging from the strangely subtle to the perfectly outrageous.
Amundson continues to plumb the rich, seemingly endless veins of the collective psyche with the new works in "Blurred Vision." Political sensation Sarah Palin gets the full-babel treatment in "Tower of Sarah," an oil-seeking abomination complete with woodworker's drills aimed towards the ocean, lipstick exhaust pipes and the catch phrase "You Betcha" amplifying the proceedings. Amundson cross pollinates current Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor with the stylistic flair of sculptor Alberto Giacometti in the more modest "Eric Cantormetti," a work the artist personally claims to be "so gross I have trouble looking at it."
Though Amundson is unabashed in his treatment of others, his career-staple self portraits of the last decade aren't exactly flattering, and are often his most searing statements. In "Tech Savvy and Solar," Amundson dons a befuddled expression resulting from the space-age head-gear he's wearing that's only remotely removed from today's reality. "Got To Get It Out of My Head" finds the artist grappling with age/doubt/madness or any combination of issues, the Amundson visage grafting one on top of the other in its own towering effect. Further showing his age, "1975" depicts another dense, surreal landscape that could be the artist shamelessly wondering what his current talent and treatise might have looked like if applied at the very start of his career, in full color no less. You've come a long way Bill, indeed!
Bill Amundson was born in 1953 in Stoughton, Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1971-1975, at which time he was awarded a B.S. degree in Art. Amundson has exhibited extensively throughout Colorado and the United States, including solo shows in New York City, Philadelphia, Toronto, Los Angeles, Austin, San Antonio, Phoenix, Colorado Springs and Denver in the past five years. His work is in the permanent collection of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the CU Art Museum and the Denver Art Museum, where he has been included in six exhibitions since 1996, most recently the prestigious 2010 show "Face to Face" alongside some of the world's most significant contemporary artists.
See Bill Amundson on Youtube:
Bill Amundson discusses his masterpiece "New Babel"
Bill Amundson receives DAMC Afkey Award 2010 Pt.1
Bill Amundson receives DAMC Afkey Award 2010 Pt.2
Bill Amundson Farewell at Plus Gallery
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