Robin Mitchell’s exhibition of recent gouache paintings, entitled Moment to Moment, continues a line of visual thinking that has progressed through her previous three exhibitions at Craig Krull Gallery. In Code Paintings, her first exhibit with the gallery in 2007, Mitchell composed intricate arrangements of small marks and brushstrokes that were suggestive of landscapes and architectural cross sections. In her next two shows, working like a zoom lens, she moved progressively deeper into her compositions. The once tiny dots and dashes enlarged into more developed shapes which, according to Constance Mallinson, “recalled forms from Egyptian hieroglyphics and stylized decorative borders, Eastern Mandalas, early Modernist abstraction or popular 50’s design motifs.” In Mitchell’s recent paintings, her brilliantly colored starbursts, orbs and linear overlays suggest that she is moving even deeper into what appear to be the molecular structures of her imagery. Like Zeno’s paradox, one senses that Mitchell may continue to take a half step closer to her subject in an infinite exploration of form and color.

In the 1960s, Los Angeles artists such as Peter Alexander, Helen Pashgian and De Wain Valentine began working with cast resin, creating highly polished sculptural forms that explored relationships of light and space, translucency and opacity. The requisite pristine surfaces of these objects allowed for the visual interplay of reflection and optical penetration. For Terry O’Shea, however, resin offered more fluid, painterly properties; his colored drips react like oil in water. In addition, he was clearly not as concerned about purity, sometimes leaving insects that alighted on the sticky surfaces to remain embedded in the final product, like natural amber. As Holly Myers observed for the LA TIMES, O’Shea’s work could possess a “woozy decadence,” and an effect that is “darker, more psychological” than the work of other artists using the same material. This exhibition, entitled Serious Candy, marks Craig Krull Gallery’s representation of the Terry O’Shea estate. The exhibit will include a selection of his resin capsules from the 60s. These colorfully striped, smoothly polished, psychedelic pills fit comfortably in the palm of one’s hand, functioning as sensual talismans. The exhibit also includes watercolors delicately dripped into concentric circles that echo the rings of color in his capsules.

Complementing these two exhibitions, the gallery’s foyer will feature George Tate’s color photographs of dynamic, boldly colored, Googie-styled car washes from the 50s and 60s in Southern California.