Churner and Churner is pleased to announce “Waters’ March,” an exhibition of new drawings by Philadelphia-based artist Anthony Campuzano. It will be Campuzano’s first solo gallery exhibition in New York.

Known for his text-based works in bold colors, Campuzano claims everyday media sources as raw material: newspaper headlines, pages of porn magazines, Wikipedia entries, and song lyrics. His process of hand-copying printed texts removes each word from its anonymous mass and recodes it as a personal, visceral statement, so that his work muddles the distinctions between language, action, and meaning.

For “Waters’ March,” Campuzano combines found texts with his own writings about personal experiences. Self Portrait with Lenora McDuffy (2011), for example, tells the story of a murder that the artist witnessed ten years ago. The text appears twice, from top to bottom and from bottom to top, the story and its inverse converging and overlapping in the middle of the page.

The exhibition title refers in part to the flooding of his studio in 2009––an incident that led him to consider questions of doubling and distance, as he chose to remake several works that had been damaged by inserting photographs of the damaged piece directly into the new panel. The title also alludes to a song by Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, “Aguas de Março” (“Waters of March”). Its lyrics do not tell a story, but instead present a list of objects, feelings, and places; Campuzano’s textual collages reverberate with similar poetry.

Music is critical to Campuzano’s performative practice. Under the influence of bands like The Fall, Megajam Booze Band, and Let’s Active, his works reflect their sometimes sordid, sometimes painfully sincere, but always low-fi sounds. I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar (2011) incorporates a fading ticket stub from a screening of Phillipe Garrels’ film about his turbulent relationship with Nico; Secrets (for E.H. with study) (2011) expands this study of love and loss by representing the tokens of a former relationship.

Anthony Campuzano’s work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia; and White Columns, New York. Some of his group exhibitions include Broad Shoulders & Brotherly Love, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Drawing in the World, Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts, Philadelphia; and Update, White Columns, New York. Campuzano (b. 1975, Philadelphia) received his BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2000, and was a 2009 recipient of the Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

For more information and images, please contact Rachel Churner at 212 675 2750 or Rachel@churnerandchurner.com.