Isabel Sullivan Gallery is pleased to present Upheaval, an exhibition of paintings and photographs by street art pioneer Richard Hambleton, on view from September 7 through October 5, 2024.

Isabel Sullivan Gallery is pleased to present Upheaval, an exhibition of paintings and photographs by street art pioneer Richard Hambleton, on view through October 5, 2024. Highlights include his Shadowmen, Shadow Heads, and Horse & Rider series, along with 2 intimate self-portrait photographs from the 1970s. The focal point of this exhibition is a rare painting from the mid-1980s of a bucking bronco and at a rodeo. Hambleton was fascinated with branding, American mythology, and the image of the Marlboro Man and its significance in the American landscape. Richard used the fury and fervor of the rodeo pit to explore the machismo of American art itself. Upheaval, with its tilting perspectives and ruthless cropping, convene in a violent disorientation while fusing gesture with motion to revisit the basic language of Action Painting. Here, as he masterfully accents the flying forms of the tumult, he reminds us of the still recent era of Abstract Expressionism. As always he delivers the obvious with multilayered meanings that defy and reify our presumptions, in this case playing paean and parody to the essence of our national identity.