Xander Berkeley: X-cavations

Opening: Wednesday, Nov 6, 2019 6 – 9 pm
Wednesday, Nov 6 – 30, 2019

We're very excited for the opening night of Xander Berkeley's "X-cavation", in The Dime! Here he describes the pieces he will exhibit starting Nov. 6th, and thru the end of the month

As an actor I’ve had both the luxury and curse of time. And as a painter, time to experiment (and obsess), building up layers, creating characters in portraiture which would one day hopefully reflect the depth, dimension and the weight of time that exists in a human being.

So, with these pieces, primarily on boards, I built up a history of skeletal, muscular and epidermal layers and then cut or scrape back in with different tools to reveal colors, textures and angles contained within. Looking for the rhythmic flows found in nature, from one feature to the next that have always intrigued me, and which take on another level of meaning when emotions blend into those streams, as they do in human experience.

If many look sad, it is a resting face sadness that is weighing the depth of existence. A meditation for me as I paint and reflect on what it is to feel life to our bones.

I wanted to show as well, a few paper and ink paintings to give a sense of the roughness and looseness of any given pass I might add as I’m working on the long term works. Both the paint and various mediums are applied at that ‘speed of life’ and the processes of excavating back to reveal past layers, are as well, an attempt to collaborate with the laws of accident and the nature of... nature, as it grows, erodes and decays in its own fascinating ways.