For her second solo exhibition at the gallery, Los Angeles artist Karen Carson will be presenting Landscapes and Lightscapes, an exhibition of variously-scaled enamel paintings on vinyl banners, along with lightboxes made of transparent vinyl on Plexiglas.
Riffing on traditional landscape imagery, mostly of Western and Southwest US, CarsonÕs images produce a whirring, vertiginous effect, not unlike that of mountains and trees when viewed from a speeding car, incised in compact, bold lines and bright colors to create hyper-graphic contours and dynamic forms. This time around, her caricatures of nature also include light boxes, backlit like bar signs, with silhouetted forests ablaze with incarnadine fire, or waterfalls flowing with cascading music notes. CarsonÕs landscapes assert a street smart, graffiti energy, while maintaining a sense of organization and serenity.
ÒFor over twenty five years, Karen Carson has created work of uncommon energy and inventiveness. Drawing on a rich vocabulary, CarsonÕs paintings are unabashedly visual, yet nonetheless inspire one to explore deeper, more complex levels of meaning.Ó (William Turner)
For Stanley WhitneyÕs third exhibition at the gallery, he will feature his signature abstractions on a small scale; each painting measures only 12 x 12 inches. WhitneyÕs compacted arrays of color continue to play within the formal constraints of the grid, in loose squares, layers, and horizontal bands. The ebullient palette and composition (compelling for its contrapuntal formality and freeness) invite the viewer to uncover the rhythmic pattern of the paintings, and their inherent musicality.