E for Eat (SOLD)
8" x 10"
Oil On Panel
Faces Of Frederick (SOLD)
7" x 5"
Oil On Panel
Witching Hour (SOLD)
6" x 6"
Oil On Panel
"I am a person who walks down the street looking at the brick and mortar, the markings on the wall, the trash on the ground wondering about its story. My practice starts with the world around me; guided by the happenstance moments that you would miss if you blink just once."
- Nasir Young
Veiled, 20" x 16", Oil On Wood
"I am a person who walks down the street looking at the brick and mortar, the markings on the wall, the trash on the ground wondering about its story. My practice starts with the world around me; guided by the happenstance moments that you would miss if you blink just once. I document the small wonders. These range from shadows dancing around objects, to visual clutter that tells a story. These may sit in my sketchbooks for months or years before it is time to use them. Every page of these books evokes memories of moments capturing a story that viewers often can relate too, and brings out a sense of Déjà vu of their own story. When I go to bring these creations to life I use observation, studying the tiniest details of information that could be easily overlooked. My landscapes and buildings are my characters with figures as supporting props, often depicting a drama and story with no figure ever being present."
Nasir Young received his BFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art in 2021. Nasir is currently represented by Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia. In 2020 he was awarded The Raymond D. & Estelle Rubens Travel Scholarship to go to London. Young was awarded an illuminate arts grant in 2021 and 2022, he was the Second place winner of the Philadelphia Sketch Club 158th exhibition of small oils, a 2022 Davinci Art Alliance Resident, and 2023 Delaware Contemporary resident. Nasir’s primary source of imagery is the everyday scenes of urban inner city life. He has had multiple group shows in Philadelphia, and online exhibitions.
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
– Henry David Thoreau
Gross McCleaf Gallery invites you to experience the magic of summer with a group exhibition titled Summer Playlist. Curated like a finely tuned mixtape, this vibrant selection of works explores seasonal themes of celebration, relaxation, and engagement with nature.
Elizabeth Johnson: Faces of London #2 and Beauty Salon play with the pattern of the bricks by eliminating some dividing lines, softening the frontal, flatter, squarer quality of those two paintings. Smudgy areas summon a tactile response that balances the use of line for both rendering and texture. You seem to really love drawing lines. Do you use a ruler, or do you have a super-steady hand?
Nasir Young: I’m going to be honest. It’s a cruel addiction: it’s all done freehand, with the occasional drawn line over the painting. Anytime I’ve tried using tape or rulers, I end up redoing the section. I can see the imperfections, so I wouldn’t call my own hands super steady. But it matches the believable space I’m building out. If the lines were perfect, it would highlight the areas that aren’t technically accurate or exaggerated. Ultimately, I’m chasing my own satisfaction in my work...
“When I choose a subject for plein air, I am responding to an immediate connection with a certain landscape at a certain time of day at a certain season. And by some mysterious alchemy my heart leaps. This stab of joy includes an element of longing and eventual loss that makes it more poignant: a realization of the universal truth ‘This too shall pass’...”
- Ann Lofquist
Gross McCleaf is delighted to present a new series of landscape paintings by Ann Lofquist in Passing Observations. Lofquist’s remarkable skill and eye for detail, beauty and serenity are on full display in this new collection of both small-scale plein air paintings, and larger studio works.
“My work seeks to find throughlines from the ancient past to present to future. I want to know how things change through time and how they stay the same.”
- Morgan Hobbs
Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present Chronolith, Morgan Hobbs’ first solo exhibition in Philadelphia and with the gallery.
Guest writer Lauren Whearty says: “Hobbs’ body of work focuses on the slow and methodical process of building a language - a new form of communication through paint, papier-mâché, and image. Each symbolic form is a building block for a wide array of possibilities with the potential to make new meaning through different combinations, or to break down the strength of an individual symbol into a more democratic piece of a larger whole.
Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present Stuart Netsky’s rich digital paintings and colorful sculptural assemblages in Walking Backward into the Future. Here, Netsky continues his innovative exploration of materials and themes well known from his seminal 1992 ICA exhibition, Time Flies. This earlier work, created during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, courageously explored the intersections of the HIV/AIDS epidemic with contemporary domestic life, popular culture, and Western art history. During Netsky’s retrospective in 2006, Rosenwald Wolf Gallery Curator Sid Sachs described Netsky as having a practice that, “operates at the nexus of social representation and sculpture, sexual cliché, and self-presentation. Echoing a variety of historical styles such as Pop Art, Pattern and Decoration, and color field, Netsky retains a crisp classical sense of craft and sense of humor that is deadly serious.” His latest work is no exception as Netsky continues with a clear-eyed honesty and queer sensibility.
Spontaneous bursts of gestural expression meet carefully planned and executed drafting in Val Rossman’s new body of abstract works. Unexpected Interference features two varieties of exploration from Rossman’s multi-faceted painting practice of layered geometric compositions and energetically marked, achromatic configurations. Each variation of Rossman’s approach combines elements of chance and moments of orchestration, both of which are fundamental to her pursuits. Rossman finds her works to be analogous to life’s common challenges, and it is in the tension created by these opposing strategies where Rossman’s work flourishes and meaning is found...
