OPENING SATURDAY - SIMON BIRCH - Ignite 14: Recent Works & LAWRENCE GIPE - Recent Pictures

August 6 - September 17, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 6, 5-8PM

Russian Drone Painting No.3 (Damascus, 2015), 2019-2022, oil on canvas, 72” x 96”

Two of the works are culled from the Russian Drone Paintings. This is Gipe’s latest series which employs the visual style of “Manifest Destiny” canvasses of the 19th Century, in a reference to the Industrial Revolution - the historical origin of all our ecological peril. The image sources are contemporary, based on screenshots of drone footage posted on the now-censored RT news service run by the Russian government. The Russian Drone Paintings engage issues like surveillance, climate change, and the Anthropocene, seen through the lens of our global “adversary,” in images of cities abandoned to radioactivity, bombardments, and other traumatic evidence of humanity’s relentless intervention into Nature.

Russian Drone Painting No.1 (Mir Diamond Mine, Siberia)” , 2018-2022, oil on canvas, 72” x 96”

In another recent series, The Great Fog and Other London Pictures, Gipe uses photos and stills from period newsreels to create a series on the subject of London’s toxic “Pea-Soupers” during the intense rebuilding after World War II. Gipe is interested in the role painting has had (and will continue to have) in the representation of climate change vis-à-vis Romantic tropes, engaging in a conversation about the rapidly transforming notion of the Capitalist Sublime.

ABOUT LAWRENCE GIPE:

Born in Baltimore in 1962, Gipe has had 70 solo exhibitions in galleries and museums in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Munich, Berlin, Düsseldorf (Kunstverein Düsseldorf.) Currently, he splits his time between his studio in Los Angeles, CA, and Tucson, AZ, where he is an Associate Professor of Studio Art at the University of Arizona. Gipe has received two NEA Individual Fellowship Grants (Painting, 1989 and Works on Paper, 1996.) A mid-career survey, 3 Five-Year Plans: Lawrence Gipe, 1990-2005, was organized in 2006 by Marilyn Zeitlin at the University Art Museum, Tempe, Arizona.   

Articles and reviews about his work have appeared in Vanity Fair, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Art and Antiques, L.A. Weekly, The Washington Post Magazine, Juxtapoz, Architectural Digest, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, The Miami Herald, The Boston Globe, ArtForum, ArtNews, Artscene LA, San Francisco Chronicle, SFAQ, Fabrik LA, Art in America, Flash Art, Village Voice,Time Out New York; Kunstforum (Germany); BijutsuTecho (Japan) and many others.

August 6 - September 17, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 6, 5-8PM

Shutdown Danger Pink, 2019, oil on canvas, 78.7” x 78.7”

William Turner Gallery in collaboration with GuY Hector (The Art House Global), is pleased to present an inaugural exhibit of paintings by British-born, Hong Kong-based artist Simon Birch. A reception will be held at the gallery on August 6th, 2022 from 6 to 8 PM, the exhibition will remain on view through September, 17th 2022.

In this series of portraits, Birch materializes enigmatic, ectoplasmic figures in his psychologically charged canvases linking sympathies between external forces and interior emotion. These large-scale renderings of figures in motion - are torn between attraction and repulsion as they twist and tumble through space. Birch delves into allegorical states of the human condition through his painterly poetics of cleaved color blocks disrupted with loose, painterly, gestural strokes. Intent on the inward, only vestiges of the external linger with allusions to what Hamlet described as, “the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”  

Building upon and scraping away layers of paint he fragments into Cubist planes, the pluralistic impulses of creation and destruction conflate to generate what art critic Clive Bell theorized as “significant form,” provoking aesthetic emotion. Investigating line, shape, and color, his canvases oscillate between figuration and abstraction, dissolving features into the dematerialized ether. Mutable flesh becomes a terrain of primordial corporeality. Employing the Futurist’s “lines of force,” and the “fourth dimension” to express a veiled space, he illustrates a reality perhaps more honest than that of visual perception.

Basing his paintings on photographs he shoots, Birch then labors with study upon study of countless preparatory drawings, which he then resolves through the act of painting, translating them onto canvas. Drawing upon a vast repertoire of painterly techniques such as scraping, troweling, scumbling, and brushing, the dynamic figures emerge in rigorous investigations of materiality in the plastic medium. His idiosyncratic palette is often punctuated with pulsating complementary reds and greens. The raw, unprimed canvases frame his shattered compositions of isolated figures within voids of negative space. 

The Marvel, oil on canvas, 84”x84”

In 2017, Birch created the socially engaged,  experiential art installation The 14th Factory which opened in Los Angeles. Spanning a cross-section of his multivalent oeuvre, it encompassed sculpture, painting, photography, performance, video, and installations, leading one through a narrative sequence of a hero’s journey inspired by mythologist Joseph Campbell. Due to its popularity - the show was visited by over 100,000 people lured by word of mouth and the power of Instagram - further iterations of this ambitious and groundbreaking new format for art are planned to take place in major international cities and will be announced soon. 

Born in Brighton, England in 1974, Birch has lived and worked in Hong Kong for over twenty years. He has had solo exhibitions in Beijing, Miami, and Singapore and has participated in group shows at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Birch has been awarded the prestigious Louis Vuitton Asian Art Prize and the Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Birch has organized many large-scale multimedia installation projects in Hong Kong, most notably HOPE & GLORY: A Conceptual Circus (2010), Daydreaming With… The Hong Kong Edition (2012), and The 14th Factory (2017). He has been included in the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s (LACMA) permanent collection.

A short video highlighting the Califia from Mark Steven Greenfield's exhibition HALO

California’s namesake, Califia (c. 1510) is the mythical Black warrior Queen who raised a menacing army of Amazons on the fabled island of California, a utopia brimming with pearls and gold. Commanding a Naval fleet and an aerial flock of five-hundred winged Griffins, the pagan Queen is a fierce adversary for the Crusaders but is eventually conquered, converted to Christianity and married off to a chivalrous Spaniard. She returns to California with her husband to establish a new Christian dynasty as further adventures ensue. The literary character is from Castillian, Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo’s 16th century epic poem, Las Sergas de Esplandián. When Spanish explorers, under the command of Hernán Cortés, learned of an island off the coast of western Mexico rumored to be ruled by Amazon women, they named it California.

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD: HALO Extended through July 30, 2022

William Turner Gallery is pleased to announce that HALO will be extended through July 30th. For more information about this groundbreaking exhibit please contact the gallery or view the catalog using the link below.

Mark Steven Greenfield, Califia, 2022, gold leaf and acrylic on wood panel, 30" x 56"

California’s namesake, Califia (c. 1510) is the mythical Black warrior Queen who raised a menacing army of Amazons on the fabled island of California, a utopia brimming with pearls and gold. Commanding a Naval fleet and an aerial flock of five-hundred winged Griffins, the pagan Queen is a fierce adversary for the Crusaders but is eventually conquered, converted to Christianity and married off to a chivalrous Spaniard. She returns to California with her husband to establish a new Christian dynasty as further adventures ensue. The literary character is from Castillian, Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo’s 16th century epic poem, Las Sergas de Esplandián. When Spanish explorers, under the command of Hernán Cortés, learned of an island off the coast of western Mexico rumored to be ruled by Amazon women, they named it California.

Summer Celebration Artist Walk-Through - Tomorrow at Bergamot Station

Join Mark Steven Greenfield for a walkthrough of Greenfield's current exhibition, HALO as part of the Summer Celebration at Bergamot Station.

SATURDAY, July 9, 2022 / 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm 
Walkthrough of the exhibition to begin at 3:30.

Follow this LINK for a full schedule of tomorrow’s events.

The two will discuss Greenfield's artistic practice and rooted engagement with the social and political issues involving race and racial identity. The conversation will address issues surrounding colonialism, slavery, and their impact on the historical record and will involve many of the individuals featured in the exhibition who have been marginalized and omitted from accepted narratives.     

Additionally, Mark Steven Greenfield will be signing our new Halo exhibition catalog for any who wish to acquire one. We are taking orders for the print version of the catalogs which are $45. Catalogs will be discounted to $40 and will be signed at the event.

About Mark Steven Greenfield: With a 2022 acquisition by the Crocker Art Museum, a 20-year museum Survey Exhibition at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, a coveted residency at Loghaven in Knoxville, TN and critical acclaim for his recent exhibitions, Black Madonna & Halo, Greenfield has been on the kind of career roll that artists dream of. That Greenfield has managed to develop a major body of work and career, while also contributing significantly to the arts and culture of Los Angeles, is a testament to his dedication and practice. From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects. His work is in numerous museum and public collections.

Mark Steven Greenfield Catalog Signing & Talk - THIS SATURDAY!

Photograph By Tony Pinto

Join Mark Steven Greenfield & William Turner for a conversation & walkthrough of Greenfield's current exhibition, HALO.

SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2022

3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
3:00 Refreshments
3:30 Walk through begins 4:15 Catalog signing

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD 

Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angelino, and son of a Tuskegee Airman, which led to spending the first part of his life abroad, living on military bases from Taiwan to Germany, until returning to LA at the age of ten. In high school Greenfield studied with revered Los Angeles artist, John T Riddle. Riddle quickly noted Greenfield’s talent, but saw that he was vulnerable to the influences and dangers confronting black youth at the time.  Riddle remarked, "You could be a pretty good artist....if you live that long.” This got Greenfield’s attention and set him on the path that would define the course of his life. 

Greenfield went on to study with Charles White, at Otis Art Institute, and received his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University Los Angeles in 1987. 

This year, Greenfield’s work was the subject of a 20-Year retrospective at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, CA, from which the The Crocker Museum of art acquired a piece for their permanent collection. 

Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States most notably with a comprehensive survey exhibition at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles in 2014, and in 2002 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in Thailand; at Art 1307 in Naples, Italy; the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, China; 1333 Arts, Tokyo, Japan; and the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea. 

Greenfield is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006) Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA 2012), The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012), the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil (2013) , the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016) and Loghaven artist residency in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2021. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 and California State University Los Angeles in 2016. 

From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE) and the Harpo Foundation. 

WTG EVENT - IN CONVERSATION: with MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD

Mark Steven Greenfield, Califia, 2022, gold leaf and acrylic on wood panel, 30" x 56"

Join Mark Steven Greenfield & William Turner for a conversation & walkthrough of Greenfield's current exhibition, HALO.

SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2022 / 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm 
3:00 Refreshments
3:30 Walk through begins
4:15 Catalog signing

Join Mark Steven Greenfield & William Turner for a conversation & walkthrough of Greenfield's current exhibition, HALO.

The two will discuss Greenfield's artistic practice and rooted engagement with the social and political issues involving race and racial identity. The conversation will address issues surrounding colonialism, slavery, and their impact on the historical record and will involve many of the individuals featured in the exhibition who have been marginalized and omitted from accepted narratives.     

Additionally, Mark Steven Greenfield will be signing our new Halo exhibition catalog for any who wish to acquire one.

Rewards Program, 2021, gold leaf and acrylic on wood panel, 24" x 36"

About Mark Steven Greenfield: With a 2022 acquisition by the Crocker Art Museum, a 20-year museum Survey Exhibition at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, a coveted residency at Log Haven in Knoxville, TN and critical acclaim for his recent exhibitions, Black Madonna & Halo, Greenfield has been on the kind of career roll that artists dream of. That Greenfield has managed to develop a major body of work and career, while also contributing significantly to the arts and culture of Los Angeles, is a testament to his dedication and practice. From1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects. His work is in numerous museum and public collections.

Frank Gehry's new hotel THE GRAND gets new installations by CASPER BRINDLE & SHINGO FRANCIS

See the new installations by gallery artists CASPER BRINDLE & SHINGO FRANCIS at Frank Gehry’s new hotel THE GRAND in downtown Los Angeles.

HALO Exhibition Catalog Now Available

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD
HALO

April 30 - July 9, 2022

Mark Steven Greenfield: “I am reimagining what a saint is.”

- Mark Steven Greenfield speaking about the legendary, mythic, and often little known, black figures featured in HALO, on view now through July 9, 2022 at William Turner Gallery, in Santa Monica,CA. 
This online exhibition catalog for HALO, and forthcoming printed first edition, features the artist’s lustrous paintings and the illuminating background stories  which accompany each portrait.

---

To order an advance copy of the print edition of HALO contact the gallery at 310-453-0909 or info@williamturnergallery.com

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD 

Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angelino, and son of a Tuskegee Airman, which led to spending the first part of his life abroad, living on military bases from Taiwan to Germany, until returning to LA at the age of ten. In high school Greenfield studied with revered Los Angeles artist, John T Riddle. Riddle quickly noted Greenfield’s talent, but saw that he was vulnerable to the influences and dangers confronting black youth at the time.  Riddle remarked, "You could be a pretty good artist....if you live that long.” This got Greenfield’s attention and set him on the path that would define the course of his life. 

Greenfield went on to study with Charles White, at Otis Art Institute, and received his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University Los Angeles in 1987. 

This year, Greenfield’s work was the subject of a 20-Year retrospective at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, CA, from which the The Crocker Museum of art acquired a piece for their permanent collection. 

Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States most notably with a comprehensive survey exhibition at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles in 2014, and in 2002 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in Thailand; at Art 1307 in Naples, Italy; the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, China; 1333 Arts, Tokyo, Japan; and the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea. 

Greenfield is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006) Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA 2012), The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012), the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil (2013) , the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016) and Loghaven artist residency in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2021. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 and California State University Los Angeles in 2016. 

From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE) and the Harpo Foundation. 

HALO Opening Tomorrow at WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY - Also at Bergamot Station - SPRING FLING

Rewards Program, acrylic and gold leaf on panel, 24”x36”

Santa Monica, CA- William Turner Gallery is pleased to present, Halo, an exhibition of exquisite new work by Mark Steven Greenfield.

Halo presents an amazing cast of historical black figures, most of whom were legendary and mythic characters in their time, but have been nearly lost to the vagaries and biases of history as seen through a white lens. With Halo, Greenfield brings the stories of Black folk-saints, martyrs, freedom-fighters, survivors, magicians, and visionaries back into view. Many of the figures are from the 1400-1800s, a timeframe that corresponds with Europeans beginning to use racial distinction as a tool to justify slavery. Greenfield honors their simultaneously disturbing and astounding lives by bestowing them with halos, traditionally seen as reverential symbols of adoration and respect.“I am reimagining what a saint is,” Greenfield says. “Maybe in studying their stories, they can inform us on better ways to live.”

Halo is a rich representation of the complexities of the historical Black identity. The figures in the paintings emerge from a variety of geographic locations, time periods, stages of life and levels of freedom - each representing a person who was nearly blotted out from written history despite their incredible feats of attributed miracles and accomplishments.

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD
HALO
SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 5-8PM

To learn more about the figures in HALO scan the QR code.

Mark Steven Greenfield HALO - Opening Saturday @ William Turner Gallery

CALIFIA, 2022, gold leaf & acrylic on wood panel, 30”x56”

Santa Monica, CA- William Turner Gallery is pleased to present, Halo, an exhibition of exquisite new work by Mark Steven Greenfield.

Halo presents an amazing cast of historical black figures, most of whom were legendary and mythic characters in their time, but have been nearly lost to the vagaries and biases of history as seen through a white lens. With Halo, Greenfield brings the stories of Black folk-saints, martyrs, freedom-fighters, survivors, magicians, and visionaries back into view. Many of the figures are from the 1400-1800s, a timeframe that corresponds with Europeans beginning to use racial distinction as a tool to justify slavery. Greenfield honors their simultaneously disturbing and astounding lives by bestowing them with halos, traditionally seen as reverential symbols of adoration and respect.“I am reimagining what a saint is,” Greenfield says. “Maybe in studying their stories, they can inform us on better ways to live.”

Halo is a rich representation of the complexities of the historical Black identity. The figures in the paintings emerge from a variety of geographic locations, time periods,  stages of life and levels of freedom - each representing a person who was nearly blotted out from written history despite their incredible feats of attributed miracles and accomplishments.

This striking new series evolved as a natural progression from Greenfield’s previous exhibition, Black Madonna, which re-imagined the unique religious icons of a black Virgin Mary and baby Jesus in ways that spoke to the moment. They made their sensational debut at the gallery in the fall of 2020. Halocontinues in the Byzantine style of the Black Madonna icons, presenting us with fascinating historical figures, rendered in rich detail and set in circular tondo’s. The lustrous gold leaf backgrounds, like the halos, seek to elevate the figures to a more hallowed stature.

Zumbi dos Palmares, 2022, gold leaf & acrylic on wood panel, 20”x16”

Throughout his career, Greenfield's work has dealt with elucidating the African American experience - examining stereotypes and other acts of oppression, often by illuminating the most oppressive of acts - those of omission. Halopresents us with powerful images of figures and events neglected by history. Greenfield's images like those of Rebecca Cox Jackson, Solitude of Guadalupeand Zumbi dos Palmares, compel us to learn their stories. 

Of the subjects in this series, Zumbi dos Palmares (1655 – 1695) is perhaps one of the best known. Zumbi was a pioneering Afro-Brazilian resistance leader and today a symbol of liberation from Brazil’s Portuguese colonists. Thought to be a descendent of central African royalty, he became a military leader to a ‘quilombo,’ or self-sustaining community of escaped slaves referred to as ‘Maroons.’  

This exhibition feels uncannily destined for this moment. It opens at a time of unprecedented upheaval, where continuing racial inequities, and a global pandemic, have challenged our institutions, and our perceptions of them, to the core. With Halo, Mark Steven Greenfield brings an important and timely perspective to the discussion. 

Moses Williams, 2022, gold leaf & acrylic on wood panel, 20”x16”

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD 

Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angelino, and son of a Tuskegee Airman, which led to spending the first part of his life abroad, living on military bases from Taiwan to Germany, until returning to LA at the age of ten. In high school Greenfield studied with revered Los Angeles artist, John T Riddle. Riddle quickly noted Greenfield’s talent, but saw that he was vulnerable to the influences and dangers confronting black youth at the time.  Riddle remarked, "You could be a pretty good artist....if you live that long.” This got Greenfield’s attention and set him on the path that would define the course of his life. 

Greenfield went on to study with Charles White, at Otis Art Institute, and received his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University Los Angeles in 1987. 

This year, Greenfield’s work was the subject of a 20-Year retrospective at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, CA, from which the The Crocker Museum of art acquired a piece for their permanent collection. 

Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States most notably with a comprehensive survey exhibition at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles in 2014, and in 2002 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in Thailand; at Art 1307 in Naples, Italy; the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, China; 1333 Arts, Tokyo, Japan; and the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea. 

Greenfield is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006) Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA 2012), The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012), the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil (2013) , the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016) and Loghaven artist residency in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2021. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 and California State University Los Angeles in 2016. 

From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE) and the Harpo Foundation. 

Mark Steven Greenfield: HALO
April 30 - July 9, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 30th 5-8PM

Closing This Saturday - Curtis Ripley: CHROMESTHESIA

This Saturday will be the last day to view Curtis Ripley’s exhibition Chromesthesia at William Turner Gallery. The gallery will be open Saturday between 11-6pm. We look forward to seeing you.

Commemorating Ed Moses

Today we commemorate the art and life of the late Ed Moses. Born on April 9, 1926, Ed Moses rose to become an important figure in Post War art. Moses had his first exhibition at the legendary Ferus Gallery in 1958 while still a graduate student at UCLA. In 1996 Ed had a career retrospective at MOCA and most recently an exhibition of works on paper from the 60’s & 70’s at the LA County Museum of Art. Ed’s work is in the collection of countless important international institutions and was featured in the 2008 documentary The Cool School.

A constant innovator and experimenter Ed tested the boundaries of materials and processes delivering exhibitions up to the year of his passing that were often completely unique from past production, a feat of creativity rarely witnessed in the history of art.

Ed was a storyteller both in paint and the spoken word. Years later those stories live on, through his survived contemporaries, his dealers, his friends and his family. He was a passionate and fearless innovator, an intellectual, a gifted orator and a phenomenal artist. His story has only begun to be written and we are honored at the gallery to have been a part of it.

ANDY MOSES, Reflecting The Dawn - Currently on View at the Laguna Art Museum

Andy Moses, Reflecting the Dawn, Acrylic on Canvas over concave wood panel, 40x96 inches

Sky Space Time Change is an exhibition that examines artworks by more than 40 California artists that look up, look out and look across the Southern California skies in contemplation of the interconnections between physical, environmental and cultural systems. The exhibition takes viewers through the colorful landscapes of Conrad Buff, Fernand Lungren, and Anna Althea Hills, to the muted visions of Roger Kuntz and Florence Arnold, and into the ethereal realm of Andy Moses, DeWain Valentine, Craig Kauffman and Larry Bell. The exhibition of paintings, prints, sculpture, and photography from Laguna Art Museum’s permanent collection has been assembled by Laguna Art Museum’s 2024 Getty Pacific Standard Time guest curators Sharrissa Iqbal and Michael Duncan.

CHROMESTHESIA Catalog Now Available for Online Viewing

William Turner Gallery is pleased to present Curtis Ripley’s most recent investigations into abstraction Chromesthesia. The exhibit is on view February 19, through April 16, 2022.

How does one visually qualify the sound of color, or conversely, the color of sound? Chromesthesia is a neurological phenomenon experienced in the synthesis of binary sensorial modalities (synesthesia) where sound and color converge into a joint perception. In his painterly choreographies, Ripley interprets this ephemeral phenomena where light dances and shadows play in concert, whilst color is given musical agency. He often cites music as a departure point in his process, evidenced in the working titles. The canvases are gestural expressions of events conducted into orchestrations of lyrical harmony as the eye traverses through fields of color.

Activating the canvas’ surface through visceral gesticulations, he employs a vast repertoire of painterly techniques to amplify the dynamism of the viscous medium. In the tradition of the Old Master’s, veil’s of glazed oils are washed upon washes whilst opaque pigments dissolve into gauzy vapors, simultaneously revealing and obfuscating. One’s gaze is drawn in-and-out as a lens’ aperture renders depth-of-field. The transient nature of the corporeal world is described through lingering films of atmospheric haze interlacing with solid volumes rendered in highly saturated pigments; this tension is achieved through varied processes of application and deletion. Vibrations are deftly strung from his palette as colors rhapsodize in polychrome hums and variegated tremors. Expressionistic drips dapple indiscriminately here, automatic splatters chance to rupture spontaneously there… calligraphic strokes animatedly reach to articulate into attenuated arabesques. Rhythmically the paintings pulse into sublimely syncopated interventions of color, light, space and motion.

Boundless forms are liberated into ambiguous spatial fields through intuitive placement. Improvisatory bits of miscellaneous paraphernalia - such as scraps of sheet music - are occasionally embedded in the paintings, imbuing a whimsical element of surprise. Void of academic hierarchies, he refrains from privileging space, favoring the spontaneity of improvisational arrangements. Resistant to strict interpretation, the paintings are nonobjective distillations informed by Ripley’s relationship with his environment. Inevitably there are loose associations employing a pictorial vocabulary, not limited to: sound, ambient light, landscape, seasons, sky, and architecture which are then dematerialized into symphonic arrangements of reductive forms and undulating color harmonies.

Breaking from traditional modes where the canvas is detached from its audience, these are rather, environments intended to engulf the spectator. Ripley instinctively unifies the subjective phenomena of color and sound into atmospheric poems intended to actively translate into an intimate experience uniquely spirited by individual perception.

Curtis Ripley was born in 1949 in Lubbock, Texas. He attended the University of the Americas, México D.F. in 1969; Texas Tech University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1971; and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1975. Ripley served as a lecturer in 1975 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; an Assistant Professor at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana from 1975 to 1977; an Associate Professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia from 1977 to 1985; an Associate Professor at California State University, San Bernardino from 1985 to 1986; and a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach from 1986 to 1987. His awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Artists Fellowship, 1979, and Juror’s Award, Zeichnung Heute, Kunsthalle, Nurnberg in 1983. He has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States, has participated in a wide-variety of group exhibitions, and has works in several collections such as those of the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, California; J.P. Morgan Chase, New York; Federal Reserve Bank, Richmond VA; HSBC Private Bank, New York; Chemical Bank, New York City; Yokohama Royal Park Hotel, Japan; and The Ambassador Hotel, Taipei. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

OPENING THIS SATURDAY 4-7PM - WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY

CURTIS RIPLEY
CHROMESTHESIA
Opening Reception: Saturday February 19, 4-7pm

William Turner Gallery is pleased to present Curtis Ripley’s most recent investigations into abstraction Chromesthesia. The exhibit is on view February 19, through April 16, 2022.

How does one visually qualify the sound of color, or conversely, the color of sound? Chromesthesia is a neurological phenomenon experienced in the synthesis of binary sensorial modalities (synesthesia) where sound and color converge into a joint perception. In his painterly choreographies, Ripley interprets this ephemeral phenomena where light dances and shadows play in concert, whilst color is given musical agency. He often cites music as a departure point in his process, evidenced in the working titles. The canvases are gestural expressions of events conducted into orchestrations of lyrical harmony as the eye traverses through fields of color.

Activating the canvas’ surface through visceral gesticulations, he employs a vast repertoire of painterly techniques to amplify the dynamism of the viscous medium. In the tradition of the Old Master’s, veil’s of glazed oils are washed upon washes whilst opaque pigments dissolve into gauzy vapors, simultaneously revealing and obfuscating. One’s gaze is drawn in-and-out as a lens’ aperture renders depth-of-field. The transient nature of the corporeal world is described through lingering films of atmospheric haze interlacing with solid volumes rendered in highly saturated pigments; this tension is achieved through varied processes of application and deletion. Vibrations are deftly strung from his palette as colors rhapsodize in polychrome hums and variegated tremors. Expressionistic drips dapple indiscriminately here, automatic splatters chance to rupture spontaneously there… calligraphic strokes animatedly reach to articulate into attenuated arabesques. Rhythmically the paintings pulse into sublimely syncopated interventions of color, light, space and motion.

Boundless forms are liberated into ambiguous spatial fields through intuitive placement. Improvisatory bits of miscellaneous paraphernalia - such as scraps of sheet music - are occasionally embedded in the paintings, imbuing a whimsical element of surprise. Void of academic hierarchies, he refrains from privileging space, favoring the spontaneity of improvisational arrangements. Resistant to strict interpretation, the paintings are nonobjective distillations informed by Ripley’s relationship with his environment. Inevitably there are loose associations employing a pictorial vocabulary, not limited to: sound, ambient light, landscape, seasons, sky, and architecture which are then dematerialized into symphonic arrangements of reductive forms and undulating color harmonies.

Breaking from traditional modes where the canvas is detached from its audience, these are rather, environments intended to engulf the spectator. Ripley instinctively unifies the subjective phenomena of color and sound into atmospheric poems intended to actively translate into an intimate experience uniquely spirited by individual perception.

Curtis Ripley was born in 1949 in Lubbock, Texas. He attended the University of the Americas, México D.F. in 1969; Texas Tech University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1971; and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1975. Ripley served as a lecturer in 1975 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; an Assistant Professor at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana from 1975 to 1977; an Associate Professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia from 1977 to 1985; an Associate Professor at California State University, San Bernardino from 1985 to 1986; and a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach from 1986 to 1987. His awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Artists Fellowship, 1979, and Juror’s Award, Zeichnung Heute, Kunsthalle, Nurnberg in 1983. He has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States, has participated in a wide-variety of group exhibitions, and has works in several collections such as those of the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, California; J.P. Morgan Chase, New York; Federal Reserve Bank, Richmond VA; HSBC Private Bank, New York; Chemical Bank, New York City; Yokohama Royal Park Hotel, Japan; and The Ambassador Hotel, Taipei. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

PETER LODATO featured in GOOD VIBRATIONS @ INTERSECT PALM SPRINGS

Intersect Palm Springs is a boutique fair that brings together a dynamic mix of more than 50 emerging and established contemporary and modern art and design galleries. An Opening Night Preview on Thursday, February 10 will be followed by General Admission from Friday, February 11 through Sunday, February 13.

Good Vibrations, organized by Shana Nys Dambrot (Arts Editor, LA Weekly) and Hunter Drohojowska-Philp (Author, Rebels in Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s), offers

an expanded view of geometric abstraction as it has evolved in Southern California from the 1950s to include the properties of light and the emotional and transcendent uses of color. Lorser Feitelson, Karl Benjamin, John Miller, Peter Lodato, Jim Isermann, Patrick Wilson, Dani Tull, Yunhee Min, Knowledge Bennett, Mary Anna Pomonis, and Jen Stark are among the artists to be included in this multi-generational show.

Location

Palm Springs Convention Center 277 N Avenida Caballeros
Palm Springs, CA 92262

Mark Steven Greenfield @ Historic Broadway Station - Timelapse Video

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD - A Survey 2001 - 2021
Currently On View at MOAH

Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angeleno. Born into a military family, he spent his early years in Taiwan and Germany, returning to Los Angeles at the age of 10. Entering into an American adolescence after being abroad gave Greenfield a unique look at the negative stereotyping of African Americans like himself, sparking his interest in the complexities of the Black experience both historically and in contemporary society. Greenfield’s creative process is based on research that delves into topics of Black genealogy, heritage, and cultural representation. His artwork is anchored in aspects of Black history that have been buried, forgotten, or omitted. 

Mark Steven Greenfield studied at what is now the Otis College of Art and Design and went on to receive a Bachelor’s degree in Education from California State University, Long Beach in 1973. To support his artistic practice, he held various positions as a visual display artist, park director, graphic design instructor, and police sketch artist before returning to school to earn his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University, Los Angeles in 1987. Since then, Greenfield has been a significant figure in the Los Angeles arts scene, serving as arts administrator for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, director of the Watts Towers Arts Center and the Towers of Simon Rodia, director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and as a board member for the Downtown Arts Development Association, the Korean Museum, and The Armory Center for the Arts — to name a few. Greenfield has been teaching painting and design courses at Los Angeles City College since 1997.

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD A Survey, 2001-2021 this Saturday at MOAH

Balthazar, 2021, Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Wood Panel, 20" X 16"

Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angeleno. Born into a military family, he spent his early years in Taiwan and Germany, returning to Los Angeles at the age of 10. Entering into an American adolescence after being abroad gave Greenfield a unique look at the negative stereotyping of African Americans like himself, sparking his interest in the complexities of the Black experience both historically and in contemporary society. Greenfield’s creative process is based on research that delves into topics of Black genealogy, heritage, and cultural representation. His artwork is anchored in aspects of Black history that have been buried, forgotten, or omitted. 

Mark Steven Greenfield studied at what is now the Otis College of Art and Design and went on to receive a Bachelor’s degree in Education from California State University, Long Beach in 1973. To support his artistic practice, he held various positions as a visual display artist, park director, graphic design instructor, and police sketch artist before returning to school to earn his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University, Los Angeles in 1987. Since then, Greenfield has been a significant figure in the Los Angeles arts scene, serving as arts administrator for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, director of the Watts Towers Arts Center and the Towers of Simon Rodia, director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and as a board member for the Downtown Arts Development Association, the Korean Museum, and The Armory Center for the Arts — to name a few. Greenfield has been teaching painting and design courses at Los Angeles City College since 1997.

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD A Survey, 2001-2021

MUSEUM OF ART & HISTORY
665 W. Lancaster Blvd. Lancaster, CA 93534
Opening Saturday, January 22, 2022 4-6PM

Mark Steven Greenfield
Black Madonna Exhibition

FLASHBACKS a new painting by Greg Miller

Greg Miller: FLASHBACKS on view until January 29, 2022

Eyeful & Cool Guy - Two works from the current exhibition FLASHBACKS