TO SCALE: Bryan LeBeouf

07 September 2006 - 14 October 2006

511 GALLERY is pleased to present To Scale, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Bryan LeBoeuf. While the Louisiana native continues to explore familial relationships and memories of his Southern upbringing, he pushes his newer work in the direction of scale and weight, playing with the meaning of “scale”.

In the enormous painting “Error of Margins”, a statuesque elephant extends past the 9-foot borders of his canvas, forcing the audience to confront the challenging perspective established by LeBoeuf. Standing in the path of the nearing pachyderm, the viewer is dwarfed by the sheer perspective of the approaching animal against its dramatically receding quarters. We’re given hints of our location: the brilliant light shining upon a tractor and a golden pile of hay. At the edge of the canvas, we see only but a glimpse of a curious wolf lingering in the shadows at the door.

Similarly, the viewer is once again forced into the challenging perspective that LeBoeuf offers us in Cock Fight, where we are about to witness a brutal fight between two roosters. At the eye-level of the rooster, we are placed in a threatening position amidst a fierce crowd. But who is the small boy nervously clutching the other rooster? We are drawn to his innocence, as if his reluctance will somehow affect the proceedings of the cruel sport. The result is discomforting yet thought-provoking, which is the power of LeBoeuf’s visual story-telling. LeBoeuf’s narratives make us question the events in life that are somewhat commonplace, freezing time at its most charged and loaded moments. As with all of his work, we are only given subtle indications of a narrative, and a realization that his stories about relationships, even between animals, are often open-ended and inconclusive.