The Bonnier Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Symposium, a solo exhibition of paintings by Richard Höglund, on view April 18 through May 18th, 2019. The opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 18th at 6:30 pm. In Höglund's latest suite of paintings the artist uses wine as his primary medium, in conversation with the famed 11th century quatrains of The Rubáiyát, by Persian astronomer and poet Omar Khayyam. In these works, Höglund utilizes experimental materials and techniques to heighten interconnected rituals of divinity and collective celebration. Citing figures as varied as Shiva and Dionysus as inspiration, Höglund's wine paintings encourage a collaborative interpretation that amplify the mystical and the poetic.
Symposium embodies the ancient Greek practice of 'drinking together' calling to action thoughts of seraphic importance; this body of work functions as a similar vehicle for transcendental thought: "A painting, like drinking together, is a strange attractor for thoughts of a higher order," Höglund explains, "A painting lets our thoughts shoulder in the embers of ancient fires lit in the pursuit of truth, in the pursuit of the divine".
