john beech . . .

John Beech uses ordinary utilitarian objects and materials to create extraordinary and often unexpected works of art. Drawing on his work as a professional museum installation technician and his affinity for such unremarkable things as mover’s dollies or car floor mats, Beech is interested in what he calls "the object quality of things." Paintings are objects, yet we only look at their surfaces. Trash dumpsters or concrete parking lot bumpers, while ubiquitous, are rarely really seen at all. Beech attempts to bridge the gap between aesthetic objects and functional ones. As he states it, "I am interested in fusing the visual vocabulary of utility and abstract art."

In the forty-two images in Dumpster Drawings and Coated Drawings, Beech exposes the unique abstract qualities of industrial trash dumpsters. With an acknowledged debt to the work of Donald Judd and the minimalist convention of the repetitive grid, Beech’s abstractions are often based on unremarkable and mundane objects found on city streets. In this series of painted photographs of trash receptacles, his reductionist forms and use of color underscore rather than obliterate the real-life objects on which they are based. In so doing, he draws acute, visual attention to these largely ignored hulks in the urban landscape. There is a gentle humor at work here too, as Beech subtly suggests not only that art can be made from the most ordinary materials, but that there is diversity and beauty to be found even in a trash dumpster.

- Jennifer Bayles, Educator for Special Projects