Ion Birch - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Ion Birch is a contemporary American artist. Birch graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design is a fine arts and design college located in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1877. Located at the base of College Hill, the RISD campus is contiguous with the Brown University campus. The two institutions share social, academic, and community resources and...

in 1994.

Work

Birch has worked in the mediums of drawing and painting. Often incorporating black humor and caricature

Caricature

A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...

, he creates unusual images that evoke poetic narratives, these works involve a high degree of subjectivity and are often cryptic in their meaning. Birch is best known for his graphite

Graphite

The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...

on paper works which incorporate phallic symbols

Phallus

A phallus is an erect penis, a penis-shaped object such as a dildo, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. Any object that symbolically resembles a penis may also be referred to as a phallus; however, such objects are more often referred to as being phallic...

and other erotic imagery

Erotic art

Erotic art covers any artistic work that is intended to evoke erotic arousal or that depicts scenes of love-making. It includes paintings, engravings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, music and writing.-Definition:...

. He has stated that these works are a meditation on the nature of repression. Birch has been grouped within broader trends of figurative and conceptual art that focus on contemporary perceptions of the body and sexuality.

Exhibitions

Birch has had solo exhibitions throughout the U.S. and Europe including: The Young Penis at Bellwether

Bellwether Gallery

Bellwether Gallery was a New York City art gallery based in Chelsea. Director and owner Becky Smith was recognized as an important promoter of emerging artists since the gallery's 1999 opening in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn...

, The Spiraling Sun at Freight and Volume Gallery (both in New York), and Policeworms at Neon Gallery in Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. In 2005, his drawing

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

s were included in the traveling exhibition Contemporary Erotic Drawing (curated by Stuart Horodner, Sara Kellner and Harry Philbrick

Harry Philbrick

Harry Philbrick was born in 1958, in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. In 1996, he was appointed director of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, where he had served as Director of Education...

), which originated at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut

Ridgefield, Connecticut

Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population of 24,638 at the 2010 census. The town center, which was formerly a borough, is defined by the U.S...

. In 2009 he was included in the exhibition “Reconfiguring the Body in American Art, 1820-2009” at The National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts. He has most recently been included in the exhibition "Sex Drive" curated by Stuart Horodner at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center

Atlanta Contemporary Art Center

The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center is a non-collecting contemporary art museum located in the West Midtown district of Atlanta. The center presents 8-10 art exhibitions per year that are free to the public every Thursday. The Contemporary also commissions artwork and organizes approximately 50...

External links

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