Frank Hyder
"The Frontier"
April 5 - August 15, 2013
Projects Gallery Philadelphia is pleased to present The Frontier, a solo exhibition by Frank Hyder. Works being featured include mixed media paintings on Mylar and illuminated sculptures. This show is held in conjunction with Hyder’s installation “Sea Dream“ on display in Terminal C of the Philadelphia Airport.
Hyder has reached into his past and leans into the future with this dynamic series of works. For more than thirty years, innovative use of woodcuts such as “Sea Watcher” in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and shaman prints, again part of the PMA and the Library of Congress collections, have been signature works for this native Philadelphian and now Miami resident. In recent years, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas and the Museum of Catholic Art and History in New York City have provided venues for his large-scale installations, combining sculpture, prints and painting to create narratives about the forest and traditions of the Americas.
The Frontier series began as a site-specific installation painting for the Miami Beach host site of the Select Art Fair during Art Basel Miami 2012. The main element of this installation was a 7 x 20 ft. mixed media work on Mylar that filled the stairway glass walls connecting two floors of the fair. Moving up or down these stairs immersed the viewer into the painting and environment of the forest. The work is peppered with digital prints on tracing paper, supplying sporadic bursts of color throughout. The forest is dominated by black and white contrast, a contrast that continues throughout the works of the show. Developing on the concept, Hyder has made paintings that focus on these prints and how they are fitted into the invented landscapes that surround them. He continues using this black-and-white-versus-color concept in a series of 3-dimensional LED illuminated prints on shaped Plexiglas, which create a small, lighted installation in one room of the gallery. The artist also steps off the wall here with freestanding sculptures from his “Chrysalis Series.” These sinuous standing forms are abstractly animated by collaged black and white woodcuts and eerie luminous colored light.
View John Thornton's video of The Frontier here.
Frank Hyder
"Changing States "
May 6-28th, 2011
A solo exhibition by Frank Hyder featuring a selection of paintings and three-dimensional drawings. Utilizing a diverse mixture of materials, including CPVC tubing, prints, lights, Plexiglas and wood, Hyder continues his dialogue with man’s relationship to nature.
Frank Hyder has made a career out of translating simple images into personal inventions. His images are known for their simple nature and complex construction, engaging the viewer in multilayered processes which hint at the natural complexity one finds in nature. Using archetypal simple forms such as boats, fish and even the human figure, he continues to engage the viewer in his very personal vision.
Frank Hyder
"Odyssey"
October 4 - 27th, 2007
Hyder’s Odyssey takes us on a journey through his use of the woodblock and gives a glimpse into his experimental three-dimensional forms. The work, as a whole, is strongly connected to the Taoist philosophy of man’s place in nature and the role of energy in nature’s composition. The rhythmic images of his painted wooden carvings present a poetic reference to Hyder’s time spent living in the jungles of South America and experiencing space without a horizon. His contemplative mark and overlapping figures reflect insight and energy while providing a sense of serenity. The spiritual essence of this work is revealed as we are pulled into the depths of the quiet. In Hyder’s woodcuts, what appears close is incised and what appears flat is lush and heavily layered. The carved lines are gilded, suggesting a divine presence as they twist and turn forcefully before us, creating an image both visual and visceral. As remarked by Edward Lucie-Smith in Hyder’s catalog from his recent New York solo exhibition, “Hyder is a master of . . . woodcut.”
Known for his color and mixed media reconstructed images, this body of work is pared down to an elegant, minimal simplicity. Borrowing construction strategies from indigenous cultures, the artist assembles simple structures. Reminiscent of forest shelters, the sculptural pieces also connect to modern architectural forms such as those found in the works of Gego. Exhibiting these core architectural works together with the carved blocks creates a poetic balance between flat and round, finished and raw. Hyder steps into new terrain here neither as solely painter, printmaker or sculptor. Odyssey is truly a spiritual and intellectual quest that the artist has undertaken through his use of the block, the print and now the elemental form.
Concurrent with Projects Gallery’s Odyssey, Hyder will be exhibiting across the U.S. with solo shows in Portland, OR and Atlanta, GA, as well as being featured in both the Toronto and Maracaibo international art fairs. Hyder has participated in over 80 solo exhibitions and 150 group shows throughout North, Central and South America. A Senior Fulbright Award in 2001 sent the artist to Venezuela for a year, where his experiences abroad inspired him to produce a prodigious body of work, which was displayed in Venezuela’s three major Contemporary Art Museums.
Frank Hyder
"New World Souvenirs"
Sept 2 - Oct 2, 2005 and Oct 7 - 30, 2005
Internationally known Philadelphia artist Frank Hyder is this season’s inaugural exhibition. In his first solo show in Philadelphia since 2001 and his first at Projects Gallery, this venerable artist displays many new works as well as several created during his one-year stay in Venezuela during his Senior Fulbright research in 2000-01.
