Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present a selection of recent works on paper by David Dupuis in our Project Room. In his diaristic drawings, Dupuis uses color pencil, graphite and collage to record his personal life and depict a world that was, that is, and that could be. Infused with concepts of desire and mortality, his homoerotic, tender imagery is an homage to those lost in the AIDS crisis, and those who survived. His recent "Dead Bankers" series tackles pressing questions of privilege, class warfare and inequalities in a world (and a City) ruled by Wall Street. Here, the "finance bros" are decapitated, dismembered as if by guillotine, clearing the way for a better world. Love Kills Slowly, the largest work in the exhibition, offers a glimpse of happiness and hope for a brighter future filled with tulips, hearts and handsome boys cut out from magazines. For Dupuis, drawing serves as a fragile antidote to the complexities of existence today.
David Dupuis (b. 1959) lives and works in New York. His work was recently included in Jack Pierson: Tomorrow's Man at the University Galleries of University of Nevada, Reno; I Was a Double, curated by Ian Berry and David Lang at The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Galleries, Saratoga Springs, NY; Utopia/Dystopia: Construction and Destruction in Photography and Collage, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX; It's Always Summer on the Inside, organized by Dan McCarthy, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY; B-Out, curated by Scott Hug, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY. His work is included in a number of museum collections including the Morgan Library, the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. This will be in eight solo exhibition with the gallery.