Dan Schein
Dan Paintings
JJ Murphy Gallery, New York
April 10 - May 10, 2025
JJ MURPHY GALLERY presents “Dan Paintings,” a solo exhibition of recent small-scale paintings by DAN SCHEIN.
Dan Schein’s early works were picaresque narratives. They portrayed the adventures of a hapless male character navigating life in the backwoods. His recent exhibition, “Middle Aged,” at Galleri Tom Christoffersen in Copenhagen, Denmark, involved a medieval theme and reflections on aging. The works in this show, his first solo exhibition in New York City since 2016, feature single or lonely characters, painted in his typical raw, expressive style, with thick impasto reminiscent of artists such as Chaïm Soutine, Frank Auerbach, and Leon Kossoff.
Dan Schein’s paintings draw upon several different genres: landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. Some are pastoral scenes. An idyllic one depicts a naked woman reclining on a riverbank while two white birds fly overhead. In “Hug a Tree” (2025), a lone woman in a long robe embraces a large tree overlooking water. What are we to make of her gesture? Whatever our interpretation, this scene reflects Schein’s subtle sense of humor in noting the eccentricities of human behavior. In “Tidal Wave” (2024), a painting that strongly recalls the work of Arthur Dove, Charles Burchfield, and Marsden Hartley, a female nude contemplates the sunrise over rough waves, including a gigantic one that threatens to cascade down and destroy the Edenic scene.
Dan Schein’s smaller works often deal with ordinary, mundane situations. In “Water Pressure” (2024), a person showers at night while incense burns nearby. Yet the real interest is less in the content than in the way Dan Schein paints it: the wavy white shower curtain, the halting flow of water from the showerhead, the subject's long wet hair, the tattoo on their shoulder, the way the gray smoke rises from the incense burner. There are just enough details to make the scene convincing, but Schein’s figuration always eschews realism in favor of a cartoonlike, painterly primitivism. His figures often merge with the background as if they are an embedded part of it.
There are several portraits. In one, a busty woman types at a desk in front of an old-fashioned computer screen. She positions her body toward us, as if posing for the viewer. We can’t help but notice her skinny white legs that seem disproportionate from the rest of her body. The black chair she sits in is so gigantic it appears to engulf her, while the canted window reinforces the sense that she’s captive within the office. In “Self-Actualization” (2022), a woman sits at a table in a restaurant, gesturing with her hands, as if she might be talking to herself. Her body language and haunted expression suggest a certain vulnerability, a characteristic that Schein's figures all seem to share.
Dan Schein has had multiple solo exhibitions at Galleri Tom Christoffersen, Copenhagen, Denmark, most recently in 2025; Marvin Gardens, Queens, NY; and Mike Weiss Gallery, NYC. Group shows include Gaa Gallery, NYC; Galerie Zink, Germany; and Feight + Volume, New York City. Schein received a BFA from SUNY at Purchase and an MFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia. The artist lives and works in Ridgewood, Queens.
JJ MURPHY GALLERY
53 Stanton Street, New York, NY 10002
