27 Aug Luis De Jesus presents Pattern Math by Heather Gwen Martin & Secret Lives of Rainbows by Geoffrey Todd Smith
Opening Saturday, September 7th 6 – 9 PM during art weekend LA.
Show Runs Through: September 7th – October 12th, 2013
Pattern Math – Heather Gwen Martin
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by HEATHER GWEN MARTIN titled Pattern Math. This will be Martin’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.
In Pattern Math, Heather Gwen Martin continues her exploration of abstraction in painting. Martin’s work eschews conceptual and critical strategies in favor of a very personal and intuitive approach that allows for a broad reading and interpretation. Martin’s approach is thoughtful and straightforward, displaying a nearscientific sense of control over formal and organic elements that negotiate and direct our experience. In a sense, her paintings can be seen to function as experimental fields—dynamic, spatial environments where energies and forces from the real world and the otherly imagined are brought into play, imposing upon and affecting one another. These forces are not necessarily measureable or quantifiable; rather they enliven the field through a complex matrix of factors: bold colors animate closely shifting hues and values; fluid, sinuous lines expand and contract in and out of intumescent shapes, bending space and creating precisely sculpted forms. Numerous layers of finely applied paint conceal and reveal, leaving ghostly, fragmentary traces and producing residual effects that challenge the eye and the mind.
Heather Gwen Martin lives and works in Los Angeles. She was born 1977 in Saskatchewan, Canada, and studied at the University of California, San Diego (BA with Honors, 1999) and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2001). Recent exhibitions include Rogue Wave 2013 at L.A. Louver, Venice, CA; The Very Large Array at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; and Theatrical Dynamics and Paradox MaintenanceTechnicians at the Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA. In addition, the Gallery will present her work at the upcoming EXPO CHICAGO Art Fair, September 19-22. Her paintings are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Ron Pizutti Collection, Columbus, OH; Hallmark Art Collection, Kansas City, MO; as well as in numerous private and corporate collections.
Secret Lives of Rainbows – Geoffrey Todd Smith
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by GEOFFREY TODD SMITH in the Project Space, titled Secret Lives of Rainbows.
In Secret Lives of Rainbows, Smith deploys an array of colorful media (acrylic, ink, and enamel) to create vibrant paintings whose complex arrangements of shapes, intricate patterns, vacillating spaces, and scintillating surfaces recall the wonders of basic school age geometry and visual trickery. For example, Smith channels his initial astonishment at first encountering simple one- or two-point perspective by using diagonal strands of shapes to evoke space. The dimensional complexity occurs when the viewer is denied vanishing points causing the structures to simultaneously move forward and recede. As the color and compositional arrangement lead the vision back and forth through space, it is met with a net of decorative, obsessively drawn surfaces. Within Smith’s intimate, fetishistic surfaces lurks a devotion to the challenges of abstract beauty and its ability to confound expectation and provoke desire. Every composition is treated like a game with self-imposed rules and limitations regarding color and form. Though there is a grid present, its rigid structure and predictability operates as a foil to Smith’s often erratic and unplanned compositions; each hard-fought painting results in a record of the struggle.
Geoffrey Todd Smith lives and works in Chicago. Recent exhibitions include shows at Western Exhibitions, Chicago, and Nudashank, Baltimore; as well as group shows at DCKT, New York; The DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; and Hyde Park Art Center; Chicago. In 2014, Smith will present a new group of paintings at Hughes Gallery in Sydney, Australia. His work is in the collections of Hallmark Inc. in Kansas City, The Jager Collection in Amsterdam, the South Bend Art Museum in Indiana and Harper College in Illinois.
Luis De Jesus
2685 South La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 838 – 6000
Tuesday – Saturday: 10am to 6pm and by appointment
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