Opening Reception: Friday, March 15, 6-8pm

Auxier Kline is pleased to present the New York City debut solo exhibition by Stephen Bron, The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be, featuring a survey of new paintings created by the Brooklyn based artist over the past year.

With The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be, Bron continues with familiar themes for the Artist such as evocative depictions of Nature and romantic love, Bron continues to hone his characteristic touch as a painter through these 19 small scale paintings packed with rhythmic brush work and sensitive paint handling.

In the artist’s own words:

“I think I will always return to making paintings of nature. I’m quite romantic and want to stay that way. I mean how can you be a painter and not be romantic? That sounds really painful and boring to me. Nature is an endless well of inspiration for me. When setting out to make this show I had no idea there would be such a strong throughline of this painter character with another person. I painted each work in one sitting, wet into wet and let them accumulate on my studio wall. I felt I was peering into a looking glass, seeing this story unfold. I got lost many times along the way. At times I felt I was somewhere in the middle of the story or back at the beginning or in another story altogether. Then I would paint another painting and suddenly an older one would make sense to me. It was the dead of winter here in Brooklyn and obviously I was dreaming about a Summer lakeside romance. During the last few months of painting however, the figures suddenly left me. At first this really disturbed me, but no matter what I did I couldn’t paint any figures. They were gone. Frustrated, I turned to painting trees, which ended up being the perfect way to finish the show. I think the tree paintings allude to a passing of time or shift in seasons. I began thinking about how this place continues on after these boys have left and I think that’s wonderful.”

The show title,The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be, is the title of a song by The Magnetic Fields from 69 Love Songs, which frontman Stephin Merritt wrote while frequenting bars around New York City.