Portals to New York

In the new paintings of Gregory de la Haba we have an exemplary model of objects for reflection. They are both paintings of real objects taken out of an everyday narrative and symbolic embodiments of the transformation of human agency, luck, and fate that movement between places and values can bestow. They offer us beauty and mystery in their mastery of significant form.

De La Haba has a particular fascination with numbers. He finds them along the route he takes each day. They are simple address numbers, often affixed to a doorway in a haphazard fashion, the doorways themselves festooned with graffiti tags that may also include numbers. Larger wall-based graffiti features numbers portrayed dramatically, often referencing a number of person significance. They may refer to a sports figure’s team number, or something less ubiquitous: an auspicious date, one’s age, number of children, and so forth. Personal numbers have an affinity with accidental ones in that, for one reason or another, they can achieve a magical vibration.  The numbers that De La Haba locates in his paintings are, by their very association, historically magical, the manner by which they have been promulgated in popular culture attaches them specifically to the activity of gambling. This pastime is symbolically loaded and carries a near cult appeal. The dynamics of chance in determining a degree of luck, and therefore of fortune, is something that we can only surmise has charismatically suggested the necessity for these paintings. 

Excerpt from “Art Encounters: Gregory De La Haba.” ART ENCOUNTERS: GREGORY DE LA HABA - by David Gibson, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DESK, 18 Feb. 2023.

Life Gives Sevens

Gregory de la Haba

Mixed media, oil, spray paint, pastel, and Krink Marker on printed canvas.

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

Meet the Artist

Gregory de la Haba is an American interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator, and cultural producer. A skilled painter with a pedagogical lineage that stretches back to Jacques Louis Davide, he is an exemplary practitioner of fine art whose conceptual practice resists categorization. De la Haba’s work explores themes of addiction, contemporary notions of masculinity, and Duende, a heightened state of emotion, expression, and authenticity derived from pure artistic expression. It is from this place that the artist unlocks his true self—both in art and in life.

Since 2008, de la Haba has produced art-related ventures through his creative platform Bodega de la Haba. Notable projects include hosting literary events with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright, curating a survey of significant work by the celebrated artist Judy Rifka at Pulpo Gallery in Murnau am Staffelsee, Germany, and producing and narrating Terrence Browne’s Irish art history musical, Hazel: Made In Belfast which premiered at Carnegie Hall.

De la Haba’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at Salzach Biennial, Salzburg Arts Festival, Queens Museum, Kunsthaus Tacheles, Contemporary Istanbul, Design Week Milan, Mykonos Biennale, SCOPE Art Show, Art Miami, Art Southampton, and Sylt Art Fair. In 2009 de la Haba was the Artist-in-Residence at Jack the Pelican Presents where he firmly cemented his notoriety with a provocative body of work.

A cum laude graduate of Harvard University, de la Haba has written on a number of artists including Billy The Artist, Richie Culver, Marcus Jansen, Cristina BanBan, Oscar Murillo, Al Diaz, California Locos (Dave Tourjé, Chaz Bojórquez, John Van Hamersveld, Norton Wisdom and Gary Wong), Miya Ando, Andy Moses, Timothy Warren Williams, Lance De Los Reyes, Mel Bochner and many others. De la Haba's writings and artworks have been featured in a number of publications including The New York Times, Southampton Review, Rizzoli’s Irish America, New York Arts Magazine, and Portray.

De la Haba is represented by Geuer & Geuer Art GmbH in Dusseldorf, Germany. A native New Yorker, the artist lives and works in New York with his wife, Teresa, and their two boys, Matthew and Sebastian.

Duende MMXXI-III

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint, Pastel on Printed Canvas

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

Duende MMXXI-IV

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint, Pastel on Printed Canvas

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

7’s Across

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint on Printed Canvas

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

Arcoiris y Duende

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint on Printed Canvas

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

Cosmic Gumballs

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint on Printed Canvas

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

Stairway to Seven

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint, Pastel on Printed Canvas

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

The Bitcoin Portal

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint, Pastel on Printed Canvas

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

Jackpot 4 Duende

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint, Pastel on Printed Canvas

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

Fucking Jackpot

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint on Printed Canvas

44” x 78”

2022

$15,000

When Life Only Rolls One Seven, Take It

Gregory de la Haba

Oil, Krink, Spray Paint, Pastel on Printed Canvas

44” x 55”

2022

$7,000

Duende MMXXI-V

Gregory de la Haba

Diptych, Oil, Krink, Spray Paint, Pastel on Printed Canvas

88” x 78”

2022

$25,000

More de la Haba