At my bedside empty pocket
A foot without a sock
Your body gets much closer
I fumble for the clock
Alarmed by the seduction
I wish that it would stop*
Jeff Bailey Gallery is pleased to present Louis Fratino: Night and Day, an exhibition of new paintings.
Fratino’s paintings capture moments: the figure in repose, reclining or embracing. Everyday acts register with familiarity but surprise us with their immediacy, bringing us bedside, to the window or table. An intimacy is shared, felt or glimpsed. We all have bedhead. And lust.
Fratino’s fluid line, touch and jewel toned colors are fleshy and delicate, frizzled and soft. Surfaces are kneaded, scraped, finessed. Temperatures rise, day becomes night, the hours pass and then we are there.
This is Louis Fratino’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Born in 1993, in Annapolis, MD, he received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD in 2015. Fratino’s work will be included in Triple at the University Art Museum, University at Albany, opening June 29. Solo exhibitions include Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York; Galerie Antoine Levi, Paris; and group exhibitions at Andrehn Schiptjenko; Stockholm, carlier | gebauer; Berlin; Galeria Moscato, Mexico City; D. C. Moore Gallery, New York; and Monya Rowe Gallery, St. Augustine, among others. He is a recipient of a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Painting, Berlin (2015-16) and a Yale Norfolk Painting Fellowship, Norfolk, CT in 2014. Fratino lives and works in New York.
*Squeeze. “Tempted.” East Side Story, A&M Records 1981.