Ernest Concepcion

Ernest Concepcion is a Filipino painter based in Brooklyn, who combines the motif of classical landscape with contemporary caricatures and representations that take one into the framework of warfare while uncovering the effects of a larger 20th-Century, Postwar existence. Concepcion began exploring this juxtaposition in a series of over 100 drawings from 2004 titled The Line Wars. Within each 9” x 12” panel the artist covered the pictorial space with cartoon-like conflicts, portraying chairs flying toward each other, monster-like eggs smothering a massive army of Saint Benedicts, or pasta fighting against the quick-sands of rice.

In 2008 Concepcion’s vision of battlefield landscapes was realized on a much larger scale at the Kentler Drawing Space where caricatures were tagged over landscapes and extended from floor to ceiling in the tall, narrow gallery space. In 2009 the artist presented a series of explosion paintings that consisted of enamel on steel. Colors became the physical layers of each mushroom cloud and marked the artist’s shift further into the depths of conflicted horizon lines, away from caricatures.

L.A. Guerra opened in July 2011, as the artist’s first West Coast solo show at Untitled Art Projects, located in Los Angeles. Ernest Concepcion is preparing for another solo show that will appear in Manila, Philippines in 2012. He frequently collaborates with Mike Estabrook in The Shining Mantis, a chalk-drawing duo that renders serendipitous battle scenes to live band music and has toured New York City, Montreal, Miami and Beijing. Concepcion has also collaborated with Queens Poet Laureate Paolo Javier on a number of chapbooks, performances and installations. In 2011 the artist was a NYFA Fellowship finalist in the category of Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts. Concepcion was also a nominee for the Painters and Sculptors Grant offered by the Joan Mitchell Foundation.