Lora Schlesinger Gallery is proud to present Con Fuego, featuring a new series of paintings by Robert Ginder in our east gallery. Con Fuego is Ginder’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition opens with an artist’s reception, Saturday October 21st from 5 – 7 pm, and is on view through November 25, 2017.

Robert Ginder’s Con Fuego presents fire as a symbol of freedom, the epitome of dynamism and change as opposed to destruction. In this new series, Ginder adopts fire as an emblem of freedom of expression, celebrating that freedom which is often under siege. Visible throughout the exhibition, the emblem features a flame engulfing a palm tree, unifying the symbols that represent inspiration, passion and paradise under the common cause of self-expression.

Ginder is known for painting contemporary subjects under traditional genres, juxtaposing the modern day with the historical. He places secular subjects in landscapes of gold to evoke religious iconography of 14th century Renaissance paintings. The conflict between the contemporary and traditional is further examined through his hyper-traditional still-life works. Although a highly traditional genre of painting, Ginder veers from the tradition into the contemporary by rendering the paintings in cinematic sizes to emphasize the subject’s qualities and splendor. The interplay between the traditional and contemporary serves to generate admiration for prosaic subjects that would ordinarily be dismissed.

Robert Ginder lives and works in New York. His work has been exhibited internationally since 1984. In 2012, he was included in the Belvedere Museum’s Gold Exhibition in Vienna, Austria. In 1992, he was the recipient of the New York Foundations for the Arts Fellowship. His work can be found in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum and the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art.