Jon Rappleye
All the way up to the top of the Night (illuminated)

Mixed Greens is thrilled to present a site-specific window installation by New Jersey-based artist Jon Rappleye. The Duratrans installation captures a fleeting moment, right before sunset, when the sky reflects a dazzling display of colors. Amid the pattern, birds glow as if illuminated from within, representing each of us on our own personal journey.

For the past decade, Rappleye has painted detailed, full compositions of fantastical terrains inhabited by animals but void of any human existence other than skulls. Rendered with intricate lines, the animals live in an almost kaleidoscopic world where they mingle in peace, seemingly unaffected by the brutal laws of nature governing our own ecological system. Magical yet eerie, Rappleye’s drawings become a personal mythology.

Although All the way up to the top of the Night (illuminated) appears to diverge stylistically from Rappleye’s recent works, it marks a return to his long-standing interest in Pattern and Decoration, an artistic movement supported in great part by the late Holly Solomon. Instead of the detailed line work used to create foreign yet identifiable representations, Rappleye places graphic silhouettes of birds in an abstract field of color blocks. Amongst the bustling birds and bursting colors, however, there is a serene quality found in the piece that echoes the uncanny tranquility of his breathtaking animal drawings.

All the way up to the top of the Night (illuminated) is included in Mixed Green’s group exhibition, Hooray for Hollywood!, that pays tribute to the legacy of Holly Solomon and her gallery, where Rappleye exhibited a site-specific window installation in the late 90s. The piece will remain on view beyond the show’s closing, through March 15.

Jon Rappleye’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, including solo exhibitions at Jeff Bailey Gallery, NYC; Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; Clough Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN; the Salina Art Center, Salina, KS; and the Jersey City Museum, NJ. His work is featured in the collections of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; The Progressive Corporation, Ohio; West Collection, Pennsylvania; and U.S. Art in Embassies. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and has been an artist in residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, MacDowell Colony, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, among other venues. He received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He lives and works in Jersey City, NJ.

For more information, please visit jonrappleye.com


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