Louis K. Meisel Gallery is proud to present Ben Schonzeit: Imaginary Friends, the first exhibition for Schonzeit’s latest body of artwork that explores the boundaries and relationships between painting, photography, and sculpture.

Recognized for his Photorealist works, Schonzeit has gone through radical transformations over the course of his career. Constantly evolving and moving freely between various media, styles, and genres, Schonzeit is unconstrained by perceived limitations, effortlessly integrating elements of different artistic practices into his process. Imaginary Friends introduces another dimension to his oeuvre, conceptually emerging from earlier bodies of work. Featuring sculptures crafted from found materials alongside works on canvas, these media work in conjunction to create narratives of Schonzeit’s own making.

With his sculptures forming the basis for these scenes, Schonzeit experiments with spatial relationships and dramatic compositions. Often made from wood, each sculpture is imbued with a dynamic attitude and a unique personality. Originally created to be a series of individual works, the sculptures take on new life in ensembles, as they seem to engage in private conversations. Schonzeit’s photographic documentation of these ensembles became the impetus for his works on canvas, which feature a cast of sculptural characters performing against spare, surreal landscapes.

In The Studio and Staging, Schonzeit continues to test the limits of pictorial space by using his paintings as a backdrop for the assembled sculpture groups, adding yet another layer to the composition and dissolving the boundaries between the media further. The complex choreography of these works reflects a compounding nature of the artist’s process—one image bleeding into the next, one material giving way to another. This creates the dizzying experience of stepping into the artist’s studio and being immersed in the imaginary world of Schonzeit’s invention.

Born and raised in postwar Brooklyn, Ben Schonzeit received his B.F.A. from the Cooper Union in 1964. Considered one of the original Photorealist painters, he has had over 50 solo exhibitions both in the United States and abroad. His paintings are held in numerous museum collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Ben Schonzeit: Imaginary Friends is on display at 141 Prince Street, New York, NY from April 2 to May 3 with opening reception held at the gallery on April 2 from 6-8 pm.