• WILLIAM STAPLES
  • new paintings

  • 65GRAND is pleased to present William Staples in his first solo exhibition with the gallery. Staples sees his practice as solely a studio concern. Meaning for Staples is an elusive query, sought out in the formal aspects of painting itself- color, composition, space and line. "I search for meaning in the paint," he states. But his work's meaning is also based on conceptual concerns. He seeks to balance the dichotomy of drawing from, and continuing in, the tradition of art and its history along with creating an oeuvre that is all his own. Images are chosen based on an idiosyncratic significance. Be they art historical, culturally relevant, mundane or personal, they have one thing in common: they engage Staples. The focus here is the act of looking. If all this seems confusing, Staples gives us the answer by telling us to simply gaze at the paintings: "I do not want the meaning to be explicit I prefer the clarity to be in the paint."

  • William Staples received his MFA from The University of Illinois at Chicago in 2002. Solo exhibitions include 12x12: Oooh His Eyes Are Like Submarines at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 2005; The Only Lonely Place is on the Moon at TBA Exhibition Space, Chicago in 2004 and Painting and Drawings at Galerie Alias, Paris in 1995. Group Exhibitions include Mix Art at the James Hotel in 2006; Good and Bad Things Come From Explosions PAC/Edge, curated by Heather Hubbs and Lorelei Stewart in 2004; and Bad Touch at The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in 2002. Staples received the Jurors Award for the 17th Evanston + Vicinity Biennial in 2004. In 2005 he co-curated Interested Painting with Andreas Fischer at Gallery 400 and co-founded BAT: A Quarterly Art Journal with Elijah Burger, Keri Butler and Julia Marsh. Staples lives and works in Chicago.