James Fuentes Online
Contact

To inquire about an artwork: please call +1 (212) 577-1201 or email james@jamesfuentes.com or kl@jamesfuentes.com.

Donald Cumming: American Fiction
March 15–April 15, 2022

As an artist, Donald Cumming’s work crosses several mediums. Throughout these modes, the impulse to make work is a gestural one—each mark and move can only happen once, and can exist as they are. There is tension within this knowledge that things may go off the rails, or get lost, sooner or later than expected. Toward these ends, Cumming works within certain controls, seeing how far the variables involved may be stretched compositionally. The results are dream-like moments, seemingly dulled childhood memories diagrammed from a tip of burnt wood against sheer stains of coffee. Color breaks through elsewhere in oil paint, where figures are siloed on panes of cardboard and canvas. The ad hoc mixture of Cumming’s imagery speaks to an artistic process that is more automatic that determined, reaching into the unconscious. At times psychological, even ominous, these works also seek to be as minimal as possible in their delivery. If in dreams you might return to the same place more than once—whether by unexpected revisitation or the desire to course correct—in Cumming’s works the scene found is less so a place than a scenario. Then again, we land upon Catastrophe! III, where we find that veering moment, get lost in its abstraction, and wonder about the II that must’ve come before. Cumming lives and works in New York and Los Angeles.

Works
Donald Cumming
“Maman” (control drawing 4 of 12)
2021

Coffee and burnt sticks on paper
Initialed and numbered verso

9 × 12 in (22.86 × 30.48 cm)
Framed: 13.5 × 16.5 in (34.29 × 41.91 cm)
InquireRead More
Donald Cumming
“Landscape” (control drawing 3 of 12)
2021

Coffee and burnt sticks on paper
Initialed and numbered verso

9 × 12 in (22.86 × 30.48 cm)
Framed: 13.5 × 16.5 in (34.29 × 41.91 cm)
InquireRead More
Donald Cumming
Alligator!
2021

Oil on cardboard
Signed and titled verso

6.5 × 8 in (16.51 × 20.32 cm)
InquireRead More
Donald Cumming
Catastrophe! III
2021

Oil on cardboard
Signed and titled verso

15 × 21.5 in (38.1 × 54.61 cm)
InquireRead More
Donald Cumming
Sad Boy
2018

Oil on canvas board
Signed and titled verso

8 × 6 in (20.32 × 15.24 cm)
InquireRead More
Donald Cumming
“Untitled landscape” (control drawing 10 of 12)
2021

Coffee and burnt sticks on paper
Initialed and numbered verso

9 × 12 in (22.86 × 30.48 cm)
Framed: 13.5 × 16.5 in (34.29 × 41.91 cm)
InquireRead More
Donald Cumming
"Untitled" (control drawing 9 of 12)
2021

Coffee and burnt sticks on paper

9 × 12 in (22.86 × 30.48 cm)
InquireRead More
Donald Cumming
Croc!
2021

Oil on cardboard
Signed and titled verso

15 × 21.5 in (38.1 × 54.61 cm)
InquireRead More
Donald Cumming
Fence
2021

Oil on cardboard
Signed and titled verso

15 × 21.5 in (38.1 × 54.61 cm)
InquireRead More
Donald Cumming
“Lil Dummy II” (control drawing 6 of 12)
2021

Coffee and burnt sticks on paper
Initialed and numbered verso

9 × 12 in (22.86 × 30.48 cm)
Framed: 13.5 × 16.5 in (34.29 × 41.91 cm)
InquireRead More