Lawnscaping

Lawnscaping is a solo exhibition by Brandon Lipchik that explores through painting a new series of works reflecting on the intertwining of identity and personal narrative taking the setting of American lawn culture. 

Some of Lipchik’s references come from American films of the 80s and 90s, such as Suburbia, Blue Velvet, American Beauty, or even David Lynch’s Twin Peaks which express at times a sense of unease or even drama, hidden behind the conformity of middle American life much inspired from Lipchik’s hometown in Pennsylvania. Lipchik thinks about composition and staging very much to high angle shots used in cinematography to evoke a sense of vulnerability or surveillance in watching being observed. This consistent framing also relates to orthographic perspectives similar to top down video gaming controls.

Lawnscaping is a term coined by Lipchik that contextualizes the setting of a private yet public outdoor scape and the process of worldbuilding and staging in the virtual. Often using screenshots from moving videography, Lipchik uses 3-D modeling software and other digital tools to reconstruct and re-stage figurative settings that investigate a reimagining of the male gaze and digital bodies. While creating new narratives with paint on canvas, Lipchik once again gives the impression that the viewer is a hidden spectator, catching a live glimpse into the private sphere of his figures. He places figures in the space and, as they spend their leisure time, the viewer, like a voyeur, can observe them through fences and other viewfinders.

Brandon Lipchik is an American painter born in Erie, Pennsylvania and attended Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. Lipchik works within the process of translation between digital compositions to paintings, Lipchik emphasizes the importance of discovering new possibilities with paint as influenced by digital screens. Lipchik emphasizes areas of tactile and physical qualities of paint to simultaneously engage in a dialogue between tactility of real world experience and the flatness and immateriality of digital space.