Md Tokon, River Flow in the Light, Acrylic on Canvas, 48 x 48 inches

Md Tokon’s lively and vivacious recent abstractions are predicated on color, light and space. He creates a visual and emotional environment ripe with gesture, layer, raw energy and improvisation. Tokon's is a new world where color feeds other colors and is tempered by a deeply considered meditation on the nature of art. It is simple, pure and organic.

Tokon is in love with color and in love with the cities in which he grew up. His paintings mimic the style of the soil house walls of his childhood home in Bangladesh. The soil, the ocean, rain, sky, light and surface, music lyrics, harmony and invention, monochrome and minimalism are all evident influences in his work.

As a teenager, Tokon was inspired to pursue a career as an artist. His first painting was completed at age 10. City life, with its vibrant atmosphere and social structure, has made a great impact on him. His destination is unknown. But he is ready to walk the land as long as he is not tired. Tokon has developed a significant body of work, influenced by his extensive travels, that is often poetic, meditative and pleasing to the eye. His paintings trap the light within their layers, building up surfaces that are at once opaque and luminescent. The result is highly emotional and energetic.

Tokon's works are pure abstraction—concerned with the depiction of emotions rather than objects—with traces of a deep reverence for the Impressionist masters. In his work, Tokon applies many layers of paint, using his breadth of emotion, masterful gesture and instinctive understanding of color. His paintings tell stories of nature and human emotion and communicate to the viewer in a mysterious way. Space—sometimes interior space, other times inner space or landscape—plays a significant role in Tokon's works. His works are closely connected to dreams and illusions. In his use of color, he has displayed a certain romantic concern for vivacious, lively hues and soulful texture. Best described as "lyrical and atmospheric abstraction," Tokon's works also convey insight into life and a spiritual attachment. 

American abstract painter Ronnie Landfield said of Tokon, "I have written in the past that Md Tokon's work was accomplished, well made, and expressive of his personal experience and of his sense of color and nature. Of late his work has become all the more succinct, direct, and to the point as he has matured into a painter who has a clear idea of what he needs to paint about. It is no small accomplishment to travel from one culture to another and to absorb what is universal and important from both cultures; and be able to reflect those insights and to create works of art that resonate meaning to all. Md Tokon has evolved into a very fine emerging young artist who has grasped the essence of the East and the West in his work."

Md Tokon was born in 1978 and grew up in New York and Bangladesh. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Communication Design from the City University of New York and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting from the Institute of Fine Arts, Dhaka University. With the help of mentors, Tokon studied for many years at the Art Students League of New York under Ronnie Landfield, Mariano del Rosario and Larry Poons. In 2012, Tokon received the Richard Lillis Memorial Scholarship in New York.

In addition to Leonard Tourné Gallery, Tokon's works have been exhibited at the Queens Museum of Art, Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden, Aicon Gallery (New York), Charles B. Wang Center, Stony Brook University, and Jorgensen Gallery at the University of Connecticut, among others. His paintings are in a number of public and private collections, including the City University of New York, the Grace Institute, Tower 49, and Le Pain Quotidien, Soho, in New York; Chung Design in Memphis, Tennessee; Clareo Partners in Chicago, Illinois; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bengal Foundation in Bangladesh; and the High Commission on Canada. His solo exhibition runs through March 28.

For additional information or to schedule a viewing, please contact Leonard Tourné Gallery at (212) 219-2656 or info@leonard-tourne.com.

RON BURKHARDT OPENS AT LEONARD TOURNÉ GALLERY

Ron Burkhardt, Atlanta, 2013, Oil on Canvas

Leonard Tourné Gallery is pleased to present "Notism LetterScapes: The Organic Beauty of Words," an exhibition of letterscape paintings by New York artist Ron Burkhardt. The exhibition opens Friday, October 25.

The Notism movement—sometimes described as an evolution of art brut, recalling the obsessive oeuvres of Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet—has taken the movement further to create a unique visual language known as LetterScapes. Architectural in structure, the letterscape paintings subtly conceal language in geometric oil paint blocks.

In his newest evolution, Burkhardt engages the viewer with stunning colors, shapes and letterforms that conjure up a sense of city skylines with a dramatic sense of scale. Each contains one or two memorable words fraught with meaning that are not apparent on first viewing. Up close, one notes the precise beauty of thick oils. From afar, the viewer is transfixed by the bold topography and distinctive color combinations.

The artist rollicks through an array of key American cities (Miami, New York, Atlanta) and moves into the profundities of emotionally-charged words (Karma, Romance, Infinity) to which everyone connects.

As renowned curator and art critic Peter Frank said of Burkhardt's work merging art and language:

Given his own orientation to the visual, an orientation he honed professionally and personally, Ron Burkhardt could not help but regard writing as something seen, not just read. Like the rest of us, he has generated volumes upon volumes of manual scripture, much of it incidentally. But unlike the rest of us, Burkhardt has gone back to these haphazard, offhanded notations and looked at them, too. And he has gotten past what they say, to how they say it—and past that, to how they appear in the act of saying.

Burkhardt has received over 200 awards for creative excellence and his work has been recognized by The United Nations, The Art Directors Club of New York, The One Show, Creativity, CLIOS, Gold & Silver Effies, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Addys, Tellies, Mobius, PHOENIX, Hollywood International Broadcast Awards, Cannes, Black Book Awards, CA Annual, Outstanding Young Men of America, and the Presidential Order of Merit.  He studied at the Art Students League of New York and the National Academy of Fine Art, New York.

In addition to Leonard Tourné Gallery, Burkhardt has had dozens of solo exhibitions and group shows, including at the Forster Gallery (Miami Beach, FL), The Forbes Gallery (New York, NY), Peter Marcelle Contemporary (Hamptons and New York, NY), Marion Meyer Gallery (Laguna Beach, CA), Paul Fisher Gallery (Palm Beach, FL), Water Mill Museum (Hamptons, NY), the Ella Sharp Museum of Art and History (Jackson, MI), and the Museum of Coral Springs (Coral Springs, FL).

His works have sold at auction in Sothebys and Phillips de Pury and are featured in more than 100 private collections.

"Notism LetterScapes: The Organic Beauty of Words" runs October 25 through November 11 at Leonard Tourné Gallery, located at 46 East 65th Street between Park and Madison avenues.

MD TOKON'S "THE DEPTH OF SPACE" OPENS AT LEONARD TOURNÉ GALLERY

Leonard Tourné Gallery is pleased to present Md Tokon's "The Depth of Space," on view at our Soho location from Thursday, April 11 through Wednesday, May 1, 2013. The opening reception will take place April 11 from 6:30pm to 9pm.

A native of Jhenidah, Bangladesh, Tokon began painting at the age of ten, inspired by nature and human emotion. He likens his layering of paint on canvas to the layers of soil coating the walls of his home in Bangladesh, his brilliant use of color to power and strength, his brushstrokes to a sense of freedom. Tokon moved to New York more than a decade ago where he has embraced urban life and refined his technique, deftly fusing minimalism, impressionism and abstract expressionism.

American abstract painter Ronnie Landfield said recently of Tokon, "It is no small accomplishment to travel from one culture to another, to absorb what is universal and important from both cultures, and to be able to reflect those insights and create works of art that resonate meaning to all. Md Tokon has evolved into a very fine emerging young artist who has grasped the essence of the East and the West in his work."

Tokon holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting from the Institute of Fine Arts at Dhaka University and a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Communication Design from the City University of New York. He currently studies painting at the Art Students League of New York under the mentorship of Ronnie Landfield, Mariano del Rosario and Larry Poons. He received the Grand Prize in the AfterSputnik Art Project (New York, 2009) and the Red Dot Award (Art Students League, 2007 to 2011).

In addition to Leonard Tourné Gallery, Tokon's paintings have been exhibited at the Grace Art Institute, Aicon Gallery, Charles B. Wang Center, and the Behr-Thyssen Gallery in New York; Jorgensen Gallery in Connecticut; and the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His works belong to a number of private collections around the globe, including the Queens Museum of Art, the Bengal Foundation, the High Commission of Canada, and the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For more information or to RSVP for the opening reception, please contact Leonard Tourné Gallery at info@leonard-tourne.com or by phone at (212)219-2656.