BART
EXPOSITO and STEVE KEISTER
September 12 – October
12, 2002
To inaugurate the fall season, Los Angeles artist, Bart Exposito, will be having his first New York exhibition at the gallery: ten abstract paintings and drawings of economy and wit, both restrained and self-assured; simultaneously loopy and cool; by an artist who “compresses loads of visual energy into flat, evenly painted pictures, carefully calibrating subtle color shifts and high-keyed accents to intensify their vitality.” (Pagel)
Exposito rarely allows for the
eyes to settle on any of his compositions. Rather, a soothing, beguiling vortex
of sharply delineated broad bands of tertiary color (retro in feel), encased in
stark, black strips of various widths, against a white, or slightly off-white,
ground, layered in a complex circuitry, at or near the surface of the
composition, or lodged many levels beneath; like some gorgeous illogical
schematic; sustains the restless momentum of the works. The paintings often
read, simply, as corporate logos from another, less hostile planet; benign yet
implacable; or as wry commentaries on the nature of interpretation of visual
symbolism itself.
Meanwhile, in the front gallery,
Steve Keister continues his thorough and ongoing examinations of Olmec imagery,
as before, derived from the most contemporary of means: found Styrofoam
packaging material. This time, however, he takes an even more literal course;
so now we find very recognizable visages of Sun Gods; almost, it appears,
directly lifted from the Aztec Calendar; pieced together in terra cotta against
a stuccoed wall, tinted pale aqua, side-by-side with a complex symbol made of
painted resin, entitled Jaguar Waterlily.