Rubens Ghenov | Accoutrements in Marwa, an Interlude in Sliver: Solo exhibition

Morgan Lehman Gallery is pleased to present Rubens Ghenov: Accoutrements in Marwa, an Interlude in Sliver. This is the artist’s second exhibition with the gallery.

In this exhibition, Ghenov continues to mine the unpublished work and meditative practice of the late Spaniard poet Angelico Morandá, a fictional poet whose influence on the painter now spans four years. The analects and practices of the poet and painter blend, an amalgam of fact and dream. Knowing the invented nature of the artists inspiration, the viewer is forced to ponder the interplay between fiction and reality; the esoteric, imagined poetic process manifested as abstraction.

The title of the exhibition is a reference to the writing of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. A line from his posthumous work The Book of Disquiet includes “…an interlude in silver”, and by shifting the letter “L” back one space, Ghenov has created a “sliver”, the liminal space that he, and the poet Morandá, often operate within. In his statement Ghenov quotes Pessoa, “…since I must on occasion either dream or act, I mix the two things together.” The obscure nature of the influences and the ambiguity of the visuals seek to invite meditation on the part of the viewer.

Rubens Ghenov was born in São Paulo, Brazil and immigrated to the US in 1989.  He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tyler School of Art (1999) and his Master of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design (2010). Ghenov has shown nationally in both solo and group exhibitions at Geoffrey Young Gallery (MA), TSA Brooklyn (NYC), Woodmere Art Museum (PA), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 2013, he co-curated with Dona Nelson the 72nd Annual Juried Exhibition at the Woodmere Art Museum. Ghenov has been featured in Title Magazine, Bomb Magazine, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. His work is included in many prominent collections, including Fidelity Investments and the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design. He is currently a professor of painting and drawing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.