INCONVERSATION: Andy Moses & Shana Nys Dambrot - Tomorrow @ 7PM

Refreshments will be served from 6-7PM. Talk will begin at 7PM. 


Andy Moses: Recent Paintings, is on view at the gallery through November, 11th.
Please RSVP to info@turnergallery.com

Andy Moses will have a Laguna Art Museum survey exhibition opening March 2026 and a survey exhibition opening in May of 2027 at MOAH.  MOAH recently acquired the 2010 painting Aqaba for their permanent collection.  

Mark your calendars and join us for an exciting evening of art and thought provoking conversation, as Andy Moses discusses his work and artistic journey with art critic, curator and author, Shana Nys Dambrot.



The two will discuss the artist's practice, spanning over thirty years and culminating in this excitingly ambitious new body of large-scale works.



Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic, curator, and author based in Downtown LA. She is the Arts Editor for the L.A. Weekly, and a contributor to Flaunt, Artillery, and other culture publications. She studied Art History at Vassar College, curates and juries exhibitions, writes prolifically for exhibition catalogs and monographic publications, and speaks at galleries, schools, and cultural institutions nationally. She is the recipient of the 2022 Mozaik Future Art Writers Prize, the 2022 Rabkin Prize for Art Criticism, and the LA Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Critic of the Year award for 2022.


Andy Moses attended the legendary CalArts from 1979-1981, studying with John Baldessari, Michael Asher and Barbara Kruger. In 1982, Moses moved to New York where he worked as a studio assistant to Pat Steir and quickly became part of New York's nascent art scene. Moses began exhibiting with Annina Nosei Gallery, shortly after Jean-Michael Basquiat. During that time Moses also developed close ties with artists such as Jeff Koons, Marilyn Minter, Rudolf Stingel and Christopher Wool, who were also just emerging onto the scene.



After eighteen years in New York, Moses returned to Southern California in 2000, where the change in coasts led to a significant shift in his work. In New York, the artist's work had explored the macro / micro influences of nature, conveying a sense of gravitational and geologic forces. In returning to California, the scope of Moses’s work expanded, as he was once again inspired by the unique effects of light glancing off waves, and the vast sky-scapes he encountered on his daily drive down the Pacific Coast Highway. The artist began exploring materials that would capture the mercurial aspects of perception, where slight shifts in perspective would reveal dramatic shifts in impression. Accordingly, Moses’ work began to incorporate many of the qualities now associated with the Southern California Light and Space movement, where the work of art became less an “art object”, and more of a “catalyst” for one’s experience of what and how they are perceived. Suggesting panoramic space, Moses began introducing concave and shaped panels to further investigate how light and its wave-lengths would curl and flex with refractive paints. These bold new paintings quickly found their audience and brought Moses to the attention of museums and major collectors alike.

Andy Moses’ work is included in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Buck Collection, Orange County Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation. He currently lives and works in Venice, CA.


Greg Miller - The Da Vinci Questionnaire - Nostalgic Nods to Ubiquitous Tropes

Greg miller at work in his Austin, Tx Studio

Extracting familiar pictorial codes from the pop culture of his youth, Greg Miller – who divides his time between New York, NY, Fredericksburg, TX and LA, CA, and whose work is featured in numerous museum and private collections, with a volume of his writings, photography and paintings having been published in 2010 – plumbs his own psychological depths only to discover what makes him love work and life.

To view the online exhibition catalog for the show please click HERE.

Once Upon A Time

Exhibition Catalog now available Online and in Print. Please contact the gallery for a copy of the print version.

Now Available from MOAH Press - Mark Steven Greenfield: A Survey 2001-2021

122 pages, fully illustrated hard cover monograph published on the occasion of the exhibition at: Museum of Art and History (MOAH), Lancaster, CA, January 22 - April 17 2022. Designed by Tony Pinto

Now available at William Turner Gallery. Signed copies of the 122 page hard cover book Mark Steven Greenfield: A Survey 2001-2021. This beautiful monograph highlights the work of this important artist’s output during the last 20 years of his career.

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 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) and the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016). 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.

ON THE EDGE BRINGS QUINN COLLECTION TO ARMENIAN MUSEUM - Andy Moses, Ed Moses, Charles Arnoldi Featured

ON THE EDGE

Los Angeles Art 1970s - 1990s from the Joan & Jack Quinn Family Collection

INTRODUCTION

Joan Agajanian Quinn and her late husband Jack represent a key moment in the history of contemporary art, as Los Angeles came to symbolize an innovative and prolific brand of creative freedom. Few individuals have left such an indelible mark on the artistic landscape of Southern California than Joan and Jack Quinn. Joan found herself both muse and promoter of several Southern California artists, while Jack used his skills as a prominent and influential attorney to help an array of emerging artists and their dealers navigate the worlds of law and business.

This exhibition highlights the couple’s collection primarily amassed from the 1970s to 1990s, a period rich in significance and defined by a unique spirit of anti-conformity, a play of new materials and a celebration of light and the California cool ethos. Much of the work was collected directly from the artists and has never changed hands or been shown publicly. Works in the exhibition will explore themes such as Ferus Group “Cool School,” Light and Space, Minimalism, Chicano Art, Pop Art, and international artists and influences.

PRESS FOR THE EXHIBITION

BOSTON GLOBE
NPR
BOSTON PUBLIC RADIO
ARTSCOPE
ART NEW ENGLAND
W MAGAZINE
HYPERALLERGIC
WBZ
MIRROR SPECTATOR
WATERTOWN TV SPOT

ANDY MOSES - Three Concurrent Museum Exhibitions - ShoutOut LA

Gallery artist ANDY MOSES is currently in shows at Laguna Art Museum, Ronald H. Silverman Gallery at CalState LA, and the Armenian Museum of America in Boston.

Shout Out LA sits down with the busy artist to discuss his recent work and multiple museum exhibitions.

Be sure to check out all of these exhibitions and stop by the gallery to see an installation of a breathtaking new large scale painting installed in the gallery offices. We will be open this Saturday for the FALL OPEN and a talk by gallery artist LAWRENCE GIPE from 3-4PM.

ART NOW LA / SIMON BIRCH and The Da Vinci Questionnaire

The artist at 14th Factory Hong Kong, photo by Scott Sporleder

British-born, Hong Kong-based Simon Birch, who has been awarded the prestigious Louis Vuitton Asian Art Prize and the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, and whose work has encompassed sculpture, painting, photography, performance, video and large-scale multi-media installation projections – often guiding the viewer through narrative sequences – plumbs his own psychological depths only to discover what makes him love work and life.

What historical art figure would you like to have lunch with and why? Caravaggio…drunken adventures, brawling, insulting the beast, the guy carried a sword and cut some guys balls off..all while painting some of the most brilliant works in human history….would be a colorful lunch.

What did you purchase with the proceeds from your first sale? A 1980 Ferrari Mondial. Sounds extravagant but was barely running and only cost about $10k. I eventually rolled it on purpose for a video installation for my project in LA, The 14th Factory. The stunt team, cameras, lighting, etc, was far more expensive than the car. The car became a video installation and 300 sculptures cut from the wreckage, and a photography work by Stanley Wong. Far more valuable than the original car and also shared as art for all.

What words or phrases do you overuse? That’s what she said!

Coachwhip SuperCharger, 49"x100” & Shutdown Danger Pink, 78.7" x 78.7"

How do you know when a work is finished? No work is ever finished, it’s just a stepping stone that brings you closer and closer to making something decent, I hope. Still working towards making good art. As one progresses, you learn, and realise how little you know, and how you lean on all of art history, consciously or not, especially painting but now, more so for me, concept driven work. So you feel at once excited to create something new, and defeated because it’s all been done. One of my first impactful criticisms was that my work is stylized and derivative. I agree but then what isn’t? Working on it. But also making the art I am compelled to make, while being more and more self, and historically, aware.

When and where were you happiest? Strangely, one of my happiest times was when I was closest to death. Something about clarity of mission. I was diagnosed with terminal cancer, but woke up the next day knowing I could crush it and received overwhelming and rapid support. I invited anyone I thought was a real friend to dinner to announce my situation (yes, all about me!) and asked for help. Only 1 of those 20 people walked away. Seeing all these people help with research, shopping and delivering supplies, taking me to hospital, working together on a survival plan….though it was life or death, it showed me who my real friends are, then and forever since. I’m happy to have passed on my process, network, advice, to many people ever since and ever more.

He Willed Himself Into Passivity, Became the Passenger Behind Her Eyes, 72”x72”

What is your most treasured possession? I possess nothing, so it’s not so relevant. Maybe my answer, cliche as it is, friends and memories. I’ve had a very rich life to be grateful for, but also lost so much over many years, had to sacrifice so much to try to achieve my goals – apartment, cars, artworks, vacations, all gone….in pursuit of something truly great. My new project, that is still very much in the balance.

Where is your ideal escape destination? Oh, that’s easy, escape to see my godson in Australia, my goddaughter in Denmark, my mum in London and a few other jokers along the way.

What’s the worst survival job you’ve ever had? I was a bouncer at a rough club in the Midlands in the late 80’s. Seeing blood many nights, and occasionally my own, was a clear message to get away from that environment. Even my brother got stabbed, lost 5 pints of blood and should have died. He’s fine now. Other friends, not fine. Second place was working in a factory on the production line, same thing every day, just awful. Bring on the robots.

What TV series from your youth best describes your approach to life? We were poor, so TV access was rare. I’d say more influential was my addiction to comic books. The Dark Knight, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Sandman….outsider heroes. All of those influences have made me try to be and do good and also obsess about drawing and painting the human figure.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? A lot of things! But all the things I would change are repercussions from my upbringing, and if I could change that, I would have gotten decent education, mentorship and opportunity.

 What is your most treasured memory? Too many. Hiking through Iceland. Surfing waves of consequence with my BFF. Freediving to the darkest depths. Making a good painting. Falling in love. Maybe one of the nicest was, after recovering, helping a friend who was desperately ill, and seeing him survive. I still claim I saved his life when we bump into each other but the truth is, it was all him.
What makes you smile? Grease, the movie. Queen at Live Aid, Bill Hicks, David Cross, Prince, School of Rock, Ricky Gervais, Fawlty Towers, Public Enemy, Star Wars….and a million other movies and TV shows….my dog Frankenstein, all my friends constantly mocking me.

 What makes you cry? Everything. The more you know, the more empathy and clarity you have, the more you realize there are endless real-world problems that could be so easily fixed. But we are far from utopia and corporations, media and governments have all the power and seem corruptly intertwined.

What is your go-to drink when you toast to a sale? Old Fashioned. Sale or not.

After an all-nighter, what’s your breakfast of champions? I don’t do all-nighters, too old for that, we are all into Brazilian Jiu jitsu, so we eat well, rest, which works for mind and body. Plus my current project is all absorbing so there’s no days off.

Who inspires you? Boyan Slat.

Money Folder, 86.6" x 86.6"

What’s your best quality? Maybe rushing into the fray to help a stranger. Quite recklessly but it’s been a recurring thing in my life, being confronted with an urgent crisis in the street and just diving in.

What’s your biggest flaw? Maybe same as previous question.

 What is your current state of mind? Utterly stressed. My last project was The 14th Factory in Los Angeles. I nearly went bankrupt, and ended up in hospital afterwards from exhaustion. It was well loved, so I’ve been encouraged to develop the next one ever since. I was close to delivering project 2 in London then COVID hit.

I retreated to Hong Kong and looked at space here and went through many ups and downs. Now I have a huge site, 250,000 square feet, and have raised some capital but not enough. Even with an exceptional team and concept, I’m struggling to find the final funding to make it happen. As I write this it may all come together in the next two weeks, or it’s canceled and I have to start from zero yet again.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? My ability to use the phrase, ‘That’s what she said,’ in every conversation.

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.

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.

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. 

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

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.

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

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

Edward Goldman’s Own ‘Made In LA’— Pandemic Version

We are pleased to have two gallery artists Andy Moses and Mark Steven Greenfield included in this exhibition at USC Fisher Museum of Art. To read the article about the exhibition please click on the link below.