In A Midnight World
October 27 - November 20, 2022
John Hrehov, "In A Midnight World," oil on canvas on panel.
John Hrehov, "All Hallows' Eve," oil on canvas on panel, 28 x 44.5 inches.
John Hrehov, "Gentle Night," oil on linen, 18 x 30 inches.
John Hrehov, "Saint in the City," oil on canvas on panel, 33.5 x 28 inches.
John Hrehov, "The Long Way Home," oil on canvas on panel, 22 x 34 inches.
John Hrehov, "House Cat," oil on canvas on panel, 40 x 27 inches.
John Hrehov, "Awake," oil on canvas on panel, 33 x 26 inches.
John Hrehov, "Night Garden," oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches.
John Hrehov, "Summer House," oil on panel, 24 x 20 inches.
John Hrehov, "Rubicon," oil on canvas on panel, 16 x 20 inches.
John Hrehov, "Cause and Effect," oil on canvas on panel, 16 x 20 inches.
John Hrehov, "Midnight Train," oil on canvas on panel, 24 x 18 inches.
John Hrehov, "Gifted Night," oil on linen, 30 x 19 inches.
John Hrehov, "Trick or Treat?" oil on canvas on panel, 30 x 38 inches.
John Hrehov, "The Past Returns," charcoal on paper, 20 x 13 inches.
John Hrehov, "Tenebrae," charcoal on paper, 13 x 19 inches.
John Hrehov, "Lesser," charcoal on paper, 18 x 21 inches.
John Hrehov, "The Commission," ink on paper, 8 x 6 inches.
John Hrehov, "Black Horse (Study)," ink on paper, 6 x 7.5 inches.
John Hrehov, "Midnight Train," ink on paper, 8 x 6 inches.
Artlink Contemporary Gallery is pleased to present In A Midnight World by John Hrehov of Fort Wayne, IN.
Artist Statement
Historically, we’ve all seen paintings using nighttime scenes, from depicting the Biblical narrative of the Nativity story to the Agony in the Garden. Everyone loves Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. The night is a time of rest and quiet, sleep and healing. It is also the time for dreams. Henri Fuseli created The Nightmare (1781) and Goya’s Witches Sabbath (1798), which evoke the fear of dreams or other more sinister forces that may prey upon us during this time. Artists such as Ralph Blakelock and Albert Pinkham Ryder use the night as a setting of mystery and magic; the night is a time of poetry with its deep shadows and glaring moonlight. Nighthawks (Edward Hopper, 1942), Nocturne in Black and Gold, The Falling Rockets (James McNeil Whistler, 1875), and The Night Watch (Rembrandt van Rijn, 1642); all works of painting we know and have studied as a context or subject of the night.
Nocturnal pictures have always fascinated me as a painter and others as well. Nighttime images began in my work in 1985, my last semester in graduate school. Since then, I’ve returned to it many times, and in recent years, I’ve created numerous paintings on the subject. My interest in the Nocturne comes from several historical references: Casper David Friedrich, Ralph Blakelock, and Giorgio de Chirico. Inspiration for me comes from my world and neighborhood, seasonal changes, and imagination; attractive to me are images that create, as de Chirico stated, “the enigma.” These works attempt to capture the nighttime world of mystery, melancholy, and magic.
Biography
John Hrehov holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. He is a Professor in the Department of Art and Design at Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW). Hrehov has had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the country, including Wood Street Gallery, Chicago, IL; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN; Yvonne Rapp Gallery, Louisville, KY; and Denise Bibro Fine Art, NYC.
Awards include Gladys Emerson Cook Prize in the Area of Prints, Drawings and Pastel, 167th Annual Exhibition National Academy of Design, NYC and Eastman-Bolton Memorial Award, Cleveland Institute of Art. His work has been featured and reviewed in various publications, including Art in America, American Artist Magazine, Louisville Courier-Journal, and The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, IN. He is represented by Gallery Victor Armendariz in Chicago, Illinois, and Denise Bibro Fine Arts, Inc., in New York, NY. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions of his paintings and drawings since 1998.