May 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

David Bailin: Confessions of a Conformist
Exhibition Dates: June 2 – July 14, 2007
Reception for the Artists: Saturday, June 2, 2007, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday: 10:00am - 5:30pm, Saturday: 11:00am - 5:30pm

The Koplin Del Rio Gallery is pleased to announce its third exhibition of drawings by Arkansas artist David Bailin. The show is entitled, “Confessions of a Conformist”.

The vigorously animate charcoal drawings depict narratives imbued with a sense of mystery, surrealism, as well as a subtle sense of humor. The narratives, which have no clear resolution, depict backdrops and characters, which would normally appear unremarkable, yet at the artist’s hand they become extraordinary and thought provoking.

This new series of work primarily consists of interior views, offices and classrooms, hallways and cavernous storerooms. As in his previous works, each scene is populated by a lone figure laboring at some mundane Sisyphean task. In the piece “Opening” the figure seems to be imprisoned in an immense chamber stacked from floor to ceiling with storage shelves containing random articles, the shear quantity of items rendered, verges on abstraction. There is a miniscule opening of sharp white light in the middle of the shelving through which the prisoner peers longingly through to the outside world.

There is an almost painterly quality in the ferocity of Bailn’s mark upon the paper, the way he carves out the objects and figures from the sepia toned backgrounds adds another layer to the already emotive subject matter. Each drawing captures an overlooked moment of absurdity in a hidden room of some corporate edifice. In the drawing titled “Shoe”, the business man depicted is staring at his unfurled shoelace, seemingly unaware of a the massive tree limb that has plunged through a window and bursting up into the roof in search of light.

“Ultimately, the character’s triumph remains not just in the resoluteness of the effort, but also in the humor of his effort” – David Bailin

David Bailin received his MA from Hunter College in New York and his BFA at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has received fellowship awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the NEA / Mid-American Arts Alliance as well as the Arkansas Art Council. Bailin was given a solo exhibition in 2000 at the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock. His work has been acquired by a number of public institutions including the Arkansas Art Center Foundation Collection in Little Rock, and Klutznick National Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. David Bailin currently lives and works in Little Rock, Arkansas.