Weinstein Gallery is very pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Ruben Nusz, his first solo exhibition with the gallery. 

RUBEN NUSZ
SEVERED HUES

OPENING RECEPTION WITH THE ARTIST
Friday, November 22th, 6:00-8:00 PM

For Severed Hues, Nusz will exhibit a suite of eighteen paintings and six preparatory drawings. These works personify a new theory where Nusz attempts to sever accepted ideas about how we view the world of color in our daily lives.

Employing saturated hues to make medium-sized, jewel-like paintings, Nusz postulates a new theory predicated not on a traditional artist's color wheel, as first proposed by Isaac Newton, but rather based on the photographic color negative and the concept of the "inverse." For instance, traditional color theory views red and middle green as complements but Nusz's Inverse Theory shows that Red and an unnamed Cyan/Sea Green are more accurate complements because they are hue opposites when reversed on a photographic color negative. 

Nusz integrates these new color relationships (based on mixing light) into a series of Hans Hoffmann-esque push/pull optical effects best personified not by photography but by the more tactile medium of painting, employed to turn color into a physically manifested entity. 

The title Severed Hues also references Nusz's search for and study of a series of severed, semi-objective colors - like a "true red." Over the past year, Nusz's desire to classify hues to formulate an objective color standard has resulted in a somewhat predictable outcome: an inability to isolate color from its environs and, by default, to disunite the human being from his/her environment. For at the core of color theory, and life for that matter, interconnectivity and relativism rein supreme. 

This exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color limited edition catalogue published by Location Books.

Born in 1978 in South Dakota, Minneapolis/Saint Paul-based artist Ruben Nusz graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Minnesota in 2001. He has exhibited work at the Walker Art Center, The Museum of Contemporary Art (San Diego), The Blanton Museum of Art, The Rochester Art Center, The New Orleans Museum of Art and the Kiehl Gallery at Saint Cloud State University. His work is featured in the permanent collections of the Weisman Art Museum, The North Dakota Museum of Art and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. In 2013 he was a recipient of the prestigious McKnight Fellowship for Visual Artists. In addition to being a contributing arts writer to the website mnartists.org, Nusz is also co-founder of Location Books, an independent publisher that provides contemporary artists the opportunity to produce new work in book form. Location books are featured in libraries throughout the United States, including the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Walker Art Center.