July 15 - August 19, 2017
Reception: Saturday, July 15, 5-7PM
Combining the qualities of tonalism with the approach of plein-air painting, Ann Lofquist's landscapes begin with what she describes as "an intense observed experience." Having taught for several years at Bowdoin College in Maine, she became recognized for her New England paintings that combined a contemporary visual awareness with the evocative subtleties of George Inness. Her recent move to Southern California presented an entirely different landscape as well as new light and atmospheric conditions that she has perceived remarkably. Bowdoin art professor Mark Wethli says Lofquist is "one of the few I would describe as having perfect pitch when it come to color, which is unmistakable in the way she captures very fleeting qualities of light." On her recent subject matter, Lofquist notes, "...new tracts abut a dry landscape still teeming with rattlesnakes, coyotes and mountain lions. The juxtaposition of the enduring and the ephemeral is everywhere in evidence in Southern California."
Chrissy Angliker scoops and smoothes acrylic paint, creating pools that drip down rocky surfaces. The paintings are a marriage of form and function, as they are fluid in both brush marks and subject matter. Her energetic strokes, reminiscent of abstract expressionism, add movement to her paintings, so that the water swirls, and the figures are perpetually roaming the beach. As she states in her new book PAINT/ING/S, "My medium, paint, is...an intermediary between two worlds, the conscious and subconscious. I don't attempt to paint the people or the water specifically, or to illuminate the conscious or the subconscious mind. These are the players with which I try to touch that vibrating, invisible line, where those worlds meet and the unknown seeps through."
For the past 30 years, Jenny Okun has been recognized for her multiple exposure photographic abstractions of architecture made with a medium format camera. With this process, the New York Times states, "Okun reveals the very soul of the buildings she photographs." In recent years, her photography has shifted to the layering of images digitally, creating more complex montages on a broader range of subjects. This newest series expresses the energetic atmosphere surrounding the architecture of Downtown LA.
On view in the gallery office:
