Timothy Curtis

Albertz Benda is thrilled to present Timothy Curtis: Things to Remember, the artist’s first solo show in the U.S., featuring an entirely new body of work. Curtis’ paintings are the product of a self-directed education received throughout his youth in Philadelphia’s most destitute neighborhoods coupled with a deep and extensive study of art history.

Things to Remember features several recurring motifs that the artist has developed into an iconography or personal signature.

Activating the entire first room of the exhibition, Curtis’ emotive faces cover the walls from floor to ceiling. The sheer span of expression and profusion of figures reaches for ways to define the human experience. In paintings such as Forever On Route (2019) the artist depicts the symbol of the bicycle. Curtis associates the bicycle with basic freedoms, and with the memory of deceased friends who were less fortunate in their individual crusades to surmount environmental limitations.

Intertwining and tangled figures, often arranged among playful iterations of institutional environments, suggest the ways in which longstanding systems of power have created obstacles that can simultaneously fortify and ensnare the spirit, and can break or cement friendships. The canvases offer viewers various connections across literal and figurative planes.

Curtis’ work exists at the intersection of drawing and painting, evident from the gestural fluidity and expressiveness experienced from the compositions. Placing an emphasis on the power, strength and intuition of bold lines, their potential to communicate feeling and convey movement is harnessed by the artist.