DFN Gallery is proud to present Jersey World, new paintings by Tom Birkner. In this exhibition, his third solo show with DFN, Birkner depicts the marginalization and insignificance of life in the contemporary post-industrial landscape. With cinematic veracity, Birkner’s subjects act out melodramas of aimlessness and inertia. With the unfeeling coolness of a snapshot, he paints a glimpse of working-class Americans - though not necessarily working  - living on the wrong side of the tracks. They populate a decaying world of abandoned factories and drive-ins, gas stations and parking lots, carnivals and picnic grounds.

Tom Birkner was born in 1966 in Rahway, New Jersey. After graduating from Rutgers University, he received his MFA from Penn State. Birkner has exhibited internationally, including numerous solo exhibitions in New York, San Francisco, Italy and China. He has won several awards including a Dodge Foundation Fellowship and the 2004 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship.