Brian Calvin, Sadie Jane, 2023; Hand-Embellished, Signed, and Numbered Limited Edition Print

**These hand-embellished prints will be available via private sale only and all clients will be required to sign a 3-year no resale agreement prior to purchase. Please email hello@artforchange.com with your interest. 

Brian Calvin began developing a figurative, non-narrative, pictorial style during the 1990s, steeping landscapes and portraits in his Californian roots. Close-up treatment of subjects, highly composed structures, and luminous colors laid flat endow these large-scale paintings with a strange temporality. In observing his technique of pictorial economy, one gradually comes to see a type of abstraction in his representation of certain details. They reveal the true finality of his work, reaffirming the primacy of a visual reflection on painting itself and its possibilities. Calvin’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at venues including Almine Rech, Brussels and Anton Kern Gallery, New York. Brian Calvin’s work is also in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the DePaul Art Museum, and the Aïshti Foundation, among others. 

Featuring Calvin’s trademark style, Sadie Jane is a surrealistic portrait of a female character who gazes back at the viewer with doubled eyes. For the artist, the image recalls Frankenstein’s Creature—a whole sewn together from disparate parts—from Mary Shelley’s famous novel. Although the figure appears to inhabit a flattened environment devoid of shadows, details such as her hair or sweater are defined by dense brushstrokes that animate them with frenzied patterns. In Calvin’s own words, “On some level, I’m always playing with elemental qualities of a painted figure, seeing what happens when you combine or distort those elements. Details are painted in and over until the resulting image declares a life of its own.”

 
Brian Calvin
Sadie Jane, 2023
24 x 17.5 inches
Archival pigment print
Edition of 10
Hand-embellished, signed and numbered by the artist  

Of this series benefitting the Ali Forney Center, he notes, “I strongly support the Ali Forney Center’s mission of providing housing and healthcare to LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness. It is essential to protect and to support this vulnerable community.”

ART FOR CHANGE will donate a portion of proceeds from each print sold to the Ali Forney Center in support of the organization’s programs that save the lives of LGBTQ+ young people, protecting them from the harms of homelessness and empower them with the tools needed to live independently. As in all series, artists will receive 50% of the net proceeds of print sales.

*International customers are responsible for applicable duties and taxes including VAT fees.
*Unframed prints ship within 1-3 weeks.
*Framed prints ship within 3-6 weeks.