John Lees' Fourth Solo Exhibition at Betty Cuningham Gallery Explores Aging Through Paint

John Lees presented his fourth solo exhibition at Betty Cuningham Gallery from October 23 to November 28, 2015. Located at 15 Rivington Street in New York City, the show featured works grappling with themes of aging, memory, and personal history. Lees' paintings, characterized by heavily textured surfaces built through relentless layering and scraping, drew comparisons to Georges Rouault and Frank Auerbach. Central to the exhibition were portraits of the artist's father, including "Man Sitting in an Armchair (Red Dog), 2008-2015," where paint was scraped away to reveal the passage of time. Earlier personal symbols, like the clown from "Clown in a Frame" and the puppet Dilly Dally from the 1950s Howdy Doody show, reappeared as motifs from his youth, processed through studio labor. A series titled "42nd Street," referencing the 1933 film, signaled a shift toward lighter, more hopeful work. Lees described his artistic process as a form of purging, aiming to move beyond difficult associations with his past. The critic Philip Hale's 1906 remark about a "fine insanity" in Marsden Hartley's work was invoked to describe Lees' intense personal vision. The largest painting, "Man Sitting in an Armchair, 2008-2015," dominated the lower gallery, focusing on the diffusion of form through aging. Another notable work, "In the Park, 2008," depicted a figure morphing and was inspired by the sound of saxophonist Ben Webster.