Born Ithaca, NY, 1973. Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

Solo Exhibitions: 2002 'Arroyo Grande, 7.22.95', Team Gallery, New York 2000 Team Gallery, New York, NY

Selected Group Exhibitions: 2003 'Flesh and Blood', Michael Steinberg, New York; 'An Enquiry into those Kinds of Distress which excite agreeable Sensations (1773): Slater Bradley & Banks Violette', Team Gallery, New York; 'Melvins', Anton Kern Gallery, New York;'The Return of the Creature', Kunstlerhaus Palais Thurn und Taxis Gartnerhaus, Bregenz, Austria 2001 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap', Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta; 'Ghost Stories', Sandroni Rey Gallery, Venice 2000 'Summer with Friends', Team, New York; Two 'Friends and So On', Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York 1999 'Rachel Lowther and Banks Violette', Momenta Art, Brooklyn

Selected Bibliography: 2003 Iles, Chrissie, "Best of 2003," Artforum; Harris, Jane, "Review of 'An EnquiryÉ', Time Out New York; Schwendener, Martha, "Review of 'Back in Black'," Time Out New York; Cohen, Michael, "The New Gothic," FlashArt International 2002 Jones, Jonathan, "Stop Spreading the News," The Guardian; Worth, Alexi, "Art Choice," The New Yorker; Johnson, Ken, "Art In Review: 'Banks Violette'" The New York Times; Honigman, Ana Finel, "Review", Time Out New York

Curatorial Projects: 2003 'Trans-national Monster League', Derek Eller Gallery, New York 2001 'Dear Dead Person', Momenta Art, Brooklyn 1998 'Fearless Vampire Killer', ABC No Rio, New York

Banks Violette

No matter what life you lead
the virgin is a lovely number:
cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper,
arms and legs made of Limoges,
lips like Vin Du Rh™ne,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes
open and shut.
Open to say,
Good Day Mama,
and shut for the thrust
of the unicorn.
She is unsoiled.
She is as white as a bonefish.

from Anne Sexton's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'

In Summer 2002, Banks Violette had a solo show at Team Gallery entitled 'Arroyo Grande 7.22.95.' I went to see it, and I immediately thought of the kid who sat next to me years ago in my sophomore algebra class. He didn't speak and hardly ever did the homework, but he did produce reams of exquisite notebook drawings in No.2 pencil of eagles and blood and razors, which chilled me to the bone'and which I couldn't take my eyes off of. Then I thought of Diamanda Galas' wailed rendition of Johnny Cash's '25 Minutes To Go.' But mostly I thought of Anne Sexton, who, in 1971 rewrote her favorite Grimms' fairy tales as concise instances of wicked present-day death metal poetry. Her secular Snow White has more than a little in common with Violette's.

'Arroyo Grande 7.22.95' presented a number of ossified, elegant, elegiac elements that, taken as a whole, commemorated a ritualistic violent crime, the likes of which are becoming sadly commonplace. Three pubescent aspiring death rockers (band-name 'Hatred') slaughtered a female schoolmate as a kind of will-to-fame, a sacrifice in the name of celebrity. In Violette's telling, shiny black epoxy icicles, a stalactite ridden stereo, a melting unicorn, and a canvas of weeping china-blue eyes without a face offered the event back up as modern fable. Indeed, if there is a contemporary Brother Grimm, he is none other than Violette who sequesters the terrible and polishes its surfaces into gleaming refractions of ambivalent desire. Using album covers and the ever-grim dailies as his source material and death metal as soundtrack, Violette alchemically fashions fetishistic relics that are at once seductive proof of and resistance against the fundamentally horrific nature of the human animal.

Johanna Burton