Biff Elrod: My Back Pages

Exhibition Dates: June 21 - July 16, 2022

Reception: Thursday, June 23, 5pM - 8pm

The Painting Center is pleased to present My Back Pages, a solo exhibition of paintings by Biff Elrod curated by Georgia Elrod. These works span much of the artist’s career, featuring paintings from the early 1970’s through 2022. Elrod’s work explores intimacy and humanist narratives through lushly colorful painting and the manipulation of photographical references. 

Elrod’s earlier works lean toward autobiographical content such as self-portraiture, domestic scenes and interiors. Regardless of the image there is often a layering effect and a close attention to color and contour. Perhaps drawing from a Pop Art sensibility, the punchy palettes and compositions bring to mind Rosenquist rather than Warhol. 

Biff Elrod moved to New York City from Texas, via Memphis TN and Boston, in 1974. The bustling energy and diversity of New York and its people play a large part in Elrod’s philosophical stance: namely, to depict people of all kinds. Akin to a contemporary version of History Painting, throughout the 1990’s Elrod was often painting crowds. These crowds are depicted almost as one organism; we see them watching, listening or moving together. In Raft, “Elrod makes a loud allusion to The Raft of the Medusa but has none of Gericault’s Romanticism. If anything, Elrod’s gathered humans make an anti-monumental statement.” (Eileen Myles) Intentionally, Elrod paints groups of people from a humanist perspective. In 1986 he completed the beloved public murals that still grace the stairways at the PATH station on Christopher Street in Manhattan.

Elrod's paintings from the 2000’s lend a cinematic quality to found and personal photography by weaving them into layers that unfold as we look. We are enticed with a visual mystery to be solved, meanwhile a back story emerges through color, light and figures. We make eye contact with many of the subjects of these paintings. We find narrative in a path around the image that often circles back, leading us ultimately to a still moment like a filmic transition: a pause between scenes. Elrod says of this work, “These paintings are constructed largely by superimposition. That is, these are combinations I create by overlaying or juxtaposing one or more images with another to produce the final work. These image combines are most often overtly personal. Many years ago, I noticed that I tended to make more effective works when dealing directly with images carrying personal emotional content. Eventually, going forward it became clear that there was also an element of self analysis, though not always therapeutic, taking place when I combined images specifically related to my life and relationships.” 

Elrod’s work shows us humans in their relativity: to one another, to themselves. There is a persistent quality to this ongoing investigation of People, and the query goes on with no end in sight as we are all constantly changing. As Ruth Siegel says of his work, “Biff Elrod’s paintings are like stills from a movie that he’s cast his protagonists into.” Elrod believes in the power of painting as direct link to humanity- painting as residue, understanding and visual connection. “One underlying premise of my work is that the intellectual and emotional motivations of the artist are significantly what we respond to in painting. I believe these aspects are inescapable and cannot be disguised for long behind style or cultural context. Even though this may be taken for granted as a general definition of what goes on while art is being produced, it seems more often unacknowledged behind the cultural moment.”

Crimson flames tied through my ears, rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon, " said I, proud 'neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

“My Back Pages”, Bob Dylan 1964

Biff Elrod (b. 1946 in Ft. Worth TX) is a New York City based painter. He has shown widely throughout the United States, at spaces including the Soho Center for the Arts, Yves Arman Gallery, Nancy Hoffman Gallery, Ruth Siegel Gallery, Schrieber/Cutler Gallery and MoMA PS1 in New York City. Elrod’s public mural is permanently installed at the PATH Station entrance on Christopher St. in Greenwich Village, New York City since August of 1986. As well, Elrod was commissioned to complete two large works for Port Authority in 1991 at their Harrison, New Jersey repair facility building’s vestibule and lobby. Elrod received his MFA from the University of Hawaii in1970 after receiving his BFA from the Memphis College of Art in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. Elrod splits his time between his New York City studio and his studio near Asheville, North Carolina.

For more information on the artist, please visit www.biffelrod.com.