Cries & Whispers
April 23 – June 4, 2011
Reception for the Artists: Saturday, April 23, 6 – 9 pm
990 N. Hill St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(323) 227-0275
www.samleegallery.com
Los Angeles, CA - Sam Lee Gallery and co-curator Paul W. Evans are pleased to present Cries & Whispers, a group exhibition of 15 diverse artists whose practice centers on abstraction. Included in the exhibition are Jakob Christmas, William Conger, Jeff Gambill, Glenn Goldberg, Joanne Greenbaum, Hadley Holliday, Andy Kolar, Andrew Masullo, Douglas Melini, Robin Mitchell, John Pearson, Carl Smith, Andrew Spence, Misato Suzuki, and Laura Sharp Wilson. The gallery will host a reception for the artists on Saturday, April 23, from 6 to 9 pm.
What makes painting a cry and what makes painting a whisper? Or could a painting be both? Cries and Whispers—not a survey show by any means—probes these questions and looks at abstraction from a multi-faceted perspective, exploring the different ways in which visual devices are employed. The utilization of line, color, content and form is paramount. Each artist brings his or her own signature method to this genre through various strategies and ideas. Such notions intersect throughout the show, creating an engaging dialogue among the pieces. These works honor the solitary journey of art-making and the longing for communication.
Jakob Christmas distills imagery to its essence by making straightforward paintings that strip away the superfluous to focus on the mystery of meaning.
William Conger has devoted himself to the exploration of form and matter with the subconscious, utilizing the techniques of pure abstraction to convey psychological metaphors.
Jeff Gambill’s Zen-like paintings stem from the intangible and the peripheral, gently conveying the transience of such moments as a fading memory or a reflection in a pond.
Glenn Goldberg’s pointillist, floral shapes dance in a Morse-like code of brightly-colored voltage on the picture plane.
Joanne Greenbaum’s wild, witty and wicked paintings celebrate the self at its idiosyncratic best, unabashedly pushing the limits of painting with her signature style of frenetic lines and psychedelic colors.
Hadley Holliday uses graceful gestures and sophisticated palette to create light washes on canvas that are at once quiet and grand.
Andy Kolar’s intimate, painted cardboard floor sculptures elevate banal materials and lure the viewer with sensual colors and biomorphic, Play-Doh-like shapes.
Andrew Masullo’s humorous works wink at the viewer but are unapologetically steeped in painting’s rich history, wildly combining brash color with the artist’s library of iconic forms.
Douglas Melini’s hard edge paintings are graphic, deliberate and alluring where colors and shapes are used for psychologically dizzying effect.
Robin Mitchell’s intricate gouache paintings on paper emanate great energy and light; they explode with radiant forms that are abstract yet referential, metaphorically portraying the artist as the illuminated self.
John Pearson’s seductive, painted sculptures/sculptural paintings convey a serene beauty while touching on the fragility of existence through his careful employment of color and line.
Carl Smith combines intricate lines with soft colors to create spiraling diagrams that make the unknown immanent and map the quest for spirtual spaces.
Andrew Spence’s sly, hard edge paintings question traditional perceptions of perspective by challenging 2 dimensional surfaces with 3 dimensional illusions.
Misato Suzuki’s acrylic paintings depict a world that oscillates between the representational and the abstract, in which repetition of lines and shapes exude an appearance of complexity and expansion.
Laura Sharp Wilson crafts complex, apocalyptic visions by interweaving cartoon, calligraphy and cartography into an explosive mixture of personal landscapes and dark narratives.
www.samleegallery.com
