Amateur Poems Dennis Buck

Dennis Buck (b. 1989) presents his first solo exhibition, Amateur Poems, at Ruttkowski;68 in Paris.

In his new series of work consisting of both large-scale paintings and small-scale drawings, Buck rejects pure text in favor of embodied language—poems that emerge not from an institutionalized linguistic system, but rather from an assemblage of personal memories and the residue of quotidian experiences that are not as trivial as they might appear.

The works on view mark a significant shift in the artist’s practice, in which he has long used silicone to mount sculptural forms onto his paintings, subverting the painting’s usual flatness and transforming it into a three-dimensional object-esque work. Buck has now turned to oil paint, which he applies in thick layers to mimic the familiar texture of his previous materials. Almost akin to an optical illusion, the grid—a visual element that recurs throughout Buck’s work, sometimes disintegrating entirely—is composed of stripes of oil paint that are simultaneously tactile and elusive, reminiscent of a slippery border between image and object.

For his canvases, the artist uses sourced fabrics that he sun-bleached during a residency in Mallorca, showcasing a materially slow process that has become increasingly intricate on a technical level in recent years. Buck pairs these canvases with a series of drawings that serve as studies prior to the painting process.

“Too much reality,” “I can not remember him,” and “the liar has dreams” are a few fragmented extracts of Buck’s poems that serve as work titles for each painting. The poems develop narratives that escape traditional language, emerging instead through form, material, and gesture. Thereby, Buck’s work channels French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s notion that meaning is not always clearly spoken or written, but sensed through perception.

 

Opening reception     05/07/2025      5-8PM

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