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The Gallery produces limited run color catalogs for many of our solo exhibitions, available for purchase at the gallery. | |
STEPHEN BEAL |
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Stephen Beal Introductory remarks by George Lawson
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This book marks the occasion of two exhibitions of Stephen Beal’s work, the first in our Los Angeles gallery a selection from a series of paintings on wooden panels and stretched linen that predominately engage white; the second in our San Francisco space is something of a subset of the paintings on linen, a continuation of the series with a reintroduction of color. Both working groups give us an opportunity to chart the evolution of Beal’s understanding, and at the same time, to gauge the maturation of painting in general as a medium responsive to our times. |
LINDA VALLEJO |
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Linda Vallejo
Make 'Em All Mexican text by William Moreno, Karen Mary Davalos and Armando Duróny
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In this recent and ongoing series, Vallejo has forged a simple visual tool capable of powerful leverage. She wields it to debunk embedded social stereotypes, but without subordinating the formality of her art to identity politics. Vallejo has crafted an ostensibly Chicano art, yet one with international address; a topical art, yet one with long shelf life. That she does this with a sense of humor does not detract from the seriousness of her intent. Her art is fundamentally transformative, and the means of her transformation is paint. She uses brown the way Yves Klein, James Lee Byars, and Lita Albuquerque use blue—as a catalyst for change and spiritual alchemy. |
JUDITH BELZER |
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Judith Belzer |
This overview highlights selections of Judith Belzer's serial work from 2006 to 2011. In the introductory remarks to the catalog for our first exhibition, I wrote, "When Judith Belzer agreed to open the inaugural show in the room for painting, I had the sense that everything else in the gallery would just come together." Much indeed has come together in the ensuing three years, and if anything, I feel more strongly than ever how Belzer's laser focus, her commitment, as she deepens and broadens her practice has contributed to anchoring the gallery's mission. More |
SUSAN MIKULA |
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Susan Mikula Foreward by George Lawson |
In 2009 Susan Mikula traveled with close friend and volunteer driver Jill McDonough to take a series of Polaroid photographs of industrial dock sites, using an SX-70 Alpha 1 camera that by then qualified as an antique. She had to procure the film, commercially unavailable, on eBay and in garage sales. Some packets had been sitting around on garage shelves for decades. The red spectrum of the dyes had faded, and the surface emulsions had coagulated, leaving her with a characteristic palette and surface she learned to exploit. Her choice to shoot in Polaroid may have initially been driven by aesthetics, but as the series has unfolded into a cycle of almost 60 finished images that span three years, it has become apparent just how commensurate are her chosen medium and her chosen subject. Mikula has captured a fading aspect of a bygone era with fading film and a bygone technology. More |
SARA BRIGHT |
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Sara Bright Foreward by George Lawson |
Sara Bright’s oils on linen are characterized by robust gesture, viscous paint and an evocative, symbolic content; they straddle the traditional boundaries between abstraction and figuration. In spite of the greater fluidity of the gouache medium, the same could be said of her watercolors. This is an incredible body of work, particularly considering that over 150 of the watercolors were completed within a single year period. More |
STEPHEN BEAL |
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Stephen Beal Foreward by Carol Becker, |
Stephen Beal paints panels of relatively small scale in monochromes or closely toned harmonics, his paint marks organized into systemically determined patterns within a penciled grid structure. The grid enjoys a well-established history in modernism and yet Beal manages to claim it as his own, largely through the sensitivity of his touch. The generative power of Beal’s paintings belies both the intimacy of their scale and the tradition in which they are steeped. More |
ALAN EBNOTHER |
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Alan Ebnother Foreward by George Lawson |
Alan Ebnother makes paintings using closely hued colors, often one color over another contrasting ground, with dry pigments hand-ground in oil on linen canvases and on wooden panels. For many years Ebnother constrained himself to only green, though a surprising range of green, and recently has broadened his palette to a full range. His paintings initially assert themselves as pure color and then come into focus as gestured compositions full of incident and very physical marking. They are characterized by rich impasto, densely applied pigmentation and intuitive, athletic brush work. More |
ROGER HERMAN |
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Roger Herman Introduction by George Lawson |
When William Blake said that energy is eternal delight, he could have been anticipating the art of Roger Herman, whose paintings, woodcuts and ceramics, whatever they might happen to depict, have always extolled the particular disciplines of freedom, engagement, and the world as a parade of open, unfettered possibilities. He is indeed a painter’s painter, but he makes anyone who approaches his work feel as if they could easily join that exclusive club. More |
WARD SCHUMAKER |
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Ward Schumaker |
Ward Schumaker came into the gallery one day last winter and introduced himself. I have been a fan for some time of his work as an illustrator, so I was pleased to meet him. His book covers, graphic designs and commercial illustration have won him a well-deserved international reputation. The logo he designed for the much-missed Moose’s restaurant on Washington Square was always one of my favorite marks and I follow that sort of thing. However, when he told me he was also a serious painter and invited me to come by and look at his art, I was somewhat hesitant. More |
TAMA HOCHBAUM |
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Tama Hochbaum Foreward by George Lawson |
We are releasing this updated version of Tama Hochbaum’s catalog to mark our first year anniversary for the gallery. Tama inaugurated the room for paper last October, along with Judith Belzer in the room for painting. I asked Tama to return and show her recent grid-based composite photographs, works she shoots for the most part from a moving car or while walking. This catalog comprises a reprint of the initial show along with the group from which the current exhibit is selected, and includes the original remarks by North Carolina artist and writer, Amy White. More |
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| Books are printed by Ben Zlotkin's Edition One Studios in Berkeley. | |
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