press
release
Norman
Sunshine, who came to Connecticut 35 years
ago and did his earliest paintings in Litchfield County,
has come back to show his work in the Northwest Corner
for the first time, after a long career in Los Angeles
and New York. A
one-man show of his work opens May 5th at the 7,000-square-foot
Morrison Gallery in the Village Barns section of Kent.
The exhibition begins with a
reception from 3 to 7 p.m.
Though
he has lived in Litchfield County for the past 20
years, he has only shown his paintings and sculptures
outside the state -- until now. "It’s
like coming home," Sunshine said. "I
have always considered myself a Connecticut painter
and at last, I’m being recognized as one."
The
Sunshine exhibit at the Morrison Gallery is a culmination
of work developed from taking the prosaic apple on
a conceptual trip through phases of art history.
He combines it with abstraction and finally transforms
it into an abstraction itself. Noted art critic Donald
Kuspit wrote, "Sunshine places us on the
border between representation and abstraction and
does not tell us which way to turn. This is a delicious
place to be. Sunshine’s paintings and sculptures
are post modernist masterpieces."
Norman
Sunshine was born in Los Angeles, attended
the University of Southern California, received a
BFA from New York University, (where he had a class
with Philip Guston.) Post Graduate work continued
at Art Center School in Los Angeles, majoring in illustration
and painting. At Art Center he studied with the pioneer
minimalist, Lorser Feitelson, and independently with
William Brice. Immediately after graduating he launched
a very successful career as an illustrator, both in
Los Angeles and New York, where he finally settled.
He won numerous awards for his commercial work both
for magazines and television, but “serious”
painting became more and more his passion. His first
body of work was shown at the Adam Gallery in New
York, received excellent reviews and sold out. With
such encouragement his passion became his full time
endeavor, resulting in numerous shows in New York,
Los Angeles and Chicago, plus major galleries throughout
the United States and at international art exhibitions.
His paintings and sculpture are in major private and
public collections as well as: The Museum of Contemporary
Art, Los Angeles, CA. Los Angeles County Museum of
Art. Museum of Arts and Sciences, Columbia, NC, and
the Palm Springs Museum of Art, CA.
