MODERN ART is pleased to present Barnaby Furnas’ first exhibition in Britain. Furnas depicts grand themes of love, death and conflict in a highly individual style that has been likened to paintings by the Italian Futurists and by Charles Demuth. Although his works often look to the past for their subjects these are current paintings - the influence of recent media such cinematic special effects and video game animation is strongly evident.

The exhibition includes one large urethane painting on linen of an American Civil War battle-scene – an image so violent in its depiction as to be almost abstract. In the Whitney Biennial 2004 catalogue Furnas’s human subjects are described as “anonymous icons for a society obsessed with its entertainment constructs”. Recent paintings see the introduction of specific mythical American personalities including Johnny Appleseed, John Brown and Abraham Lincon who are represented in vivid contemporary colours.

John Brown (1800 -1859) became a mythical figure in American culture for his militant actions against slavery. In 1855 Brown established a guerilla army to attack slave-owning settlements. In 1859 Brown was wounded and captured by troops under the command of Robert E. Lee and moved to Charlestown, Virginia, where he was tried and convicted of treason, a crime for which he was hanged. Henry David Thoreau said of Brown that "No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature. . . ."

Johnny Appleseed, or John Chapman (1774 - 1845), was among the first Europeans to venture into the rich and fertile lands lying south of the American Great Lakes and west of the Ohio river after they were opened for European settlement in the early 1800's. For nearly fifty years Appleseed roamed what we now know as Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois selling apple trees saplings (that he’d planted from seed in the wilderness) to fellow settlers. Appleseed never carried a gun or weapon of any kind. He was a deeply religious man who was accepted as a friend by indigenous and immigrant Americans alike. He is credited with the introduction of millions of apple trees across the American interior.

Barnaby Furnas has previously had solo exhibitions at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York. Earlier this year he participated in the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Furnas has also recently exhibited in group exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Wein, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, Italy.