SUFACE TENSION: FOCUS LOS ANGELES

Santa Monica, CA  - William Turner Gallery is pleased to present Surface Tension: Focus Los Angeles, a major group exhibition of West Coast artists, opening February 28, 5-8 PM, and on view through April 11, 2026.

Surface Tension: Focus Los Angeles explores surface as an active site of meaning, sensation, and perception. The exhibition foregrounds how contemporary practices use texture, layering, and materiality to shape visual and sensory experience. Bridging painting, sculpture, and works at their intersection, the featured artists employ materials ranging from pearlescent and pigmented acrylics to urethane, resin, industrial finishes, and etched line-work.

Together, the works reveal surface as a dynamic interface that captures light, depth, and movement while inviting sustained, close looking. Through extended material experimentation and technical refinement, each artist demonstrates a deep attunement to their chosen medium, using surface to generate tension between control and intuition, precision and discovery, all aimed at igniting a spark of heightened perception.

Featured artists: Dawn Arrowsmith, Casper Brindle, Alex Couwenberg, Shingo Francis, Frank Gehry, Jimi Gleason, James Hayward, Eric Johnson, Peter Lodato, Andy Moses, Ed Moses, Roland Reiss, and Jennifer Wolf.

Dawn Arrowsmith produces meditative, color-driven works informed by Buddhist philosophy and extensive travel. Her paintings appear minimal at first glance, gradually revealing optical shimmer and depth through prolonged viewing.

Casper Brindle creates paintings and sculptures that engage light through reflective, industrial materials including resin and automotive paint. His work shifts with the viewer’s movement, emphasizing perception and atmospheric depth.

Alex Couwenberg is a Southern California–based painter whose work draws from Los Angeles modernism and mid-century design. His sleek, glossy paintings are influenced by Hard-edge abstraction and Finish Fetish aesthetics.

Shingo Francis creates paintings that shimmer and shift through the use of interference pigments that refract light. Influenced by Southern California’s Light and Space movement and his immersion in LA’s art scene, Francis’s works change with viewer position and lighting conditions.

Frank Gehry (1929–2025) Known for his de-constructivist approach and creative use of materials, Gehry’s buildings share an artist’s sensibility, where surface texture and dynamic form activate his structures. The undulating, curvilinear forms of his architecture are often echoed in the sculptures and drawings he created throughout his long career.

Jimi Gleason explores the reflective and perceptual properties of light, using materials such as silver nitrate and pearlescent paint. His mirror-like surfaces shift with the viewer and environment, creating interactive, meditative experiences.

James Hayward paints monochromes that celebrate the nuances of color and sensuality of texture. The surfaces are lavish cake icings of paint, almost daring the viewer to touch, lick, engage. Deft strokes of the artist’s hand remain as deep fissures in the surface, further exciting the senses to embrace their physicality.

Eric Johnson creates resin-based sculptures that merge color, form, and structure, drawing from Southern California’s surf, automotive, and aerospace cultures. His works balance polished surfaces with exposed internal architectures, revealing both depth and construction.

Peter Lodato (1946–2025) emerged from the Light and Space movement, initially creating immersive light installations before translating perceptual effects into painting. His geometric compositions subtly dissolve through layered brushwork and color vibration, challenging visual certainty.

Andy Moses is known for his intensive exploration of paint’s alchemical properties. Through complex pouring and mixing processes, his luminous abstractions evoke natural forces rather than representational imagery.

Ed Moses (1926–2018) was a pivotal figure in postwar Los Angeles abstraction and a core member of the Ferus Gallery circle. Known for his experimental, process-driven approach, Moses continuously redefined painting over a career spanning six decades.

Roland Reiss (1929-2020) played a significant role in the evolution of postwar West Coast abstraction. Moving from Abstract Expressionism through resin experimentation and conceptual inquiry, Reiss has consistently explored painting as an energetic, interactive field.

Scot Heywood’s works are indebted to the origins of geometric abstraction. Ranging in scale from intimate to encompassing, his paintings consist of multiple, colored canvases, connected in staggered, patchwork patterns, intentionally misaligned to create delightfully disruptive, staccato visual rhythms.

Jennifer Wolf uses natural dyes and hand-ground pigments sourced from global expeditions to create subtly shimmering, immersive paintings. Her work explores the elemental qualities of color and surface through fluid, layered compositions that evoke natural environments.

Phenomena features a range of work, from representational depictions to abstract expressions,  celebrating the power and visual splendor of the natural world as a resource for creative expression and investigation.  For centuries, artists have pictorially documented their observational studies of natural phenomena and the world around us. Manuscripts such as Natural History (77 CE) by Pliny the Elder and The Book of Miracles (1552), chronicled divine wonders and horrors in illustrations, often serving as warnings of the consequences of human deeds upon their environment and the mysteries of the natural world. Utilizing these extraordinary codexes as a genesis for Phenomena, the exhibition explores related themes.

In the 16th century, “cabinets of curiosities” or “wonder rooms” in Europe served as spaces to showcase collections curated for the artistic and scientific interests of their patrons and served as precursors to museums. With missions to both amuse and enlighten, “cabinets of curiosities” functioned as sources for entertainment and educational resources, thus intersecting art and science. In the late 19th century, scientific inquiry shifted from museums to university laboratories bifurcating the two discourses. Phenomena merges the two disciplines as they once had been integrated in the cabinets of curiosities.

Artists in Phenomena: Charles Arnoldi, Natalie Arnoldi, Ryland Arnoldi, Kelsey Brookes, Alex Couwenberg, Franco Defrancesca, Lawrence Gipe, David Lloyd, Ed Moses, Jeff Overlie, Melanie Pullen, Jennifer Wolf

LIGHT MATTER

PST ART: ART & SCIENCE COLLIDE
September 14 - November 2, 2024

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 14, 4-8PM   

William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, California - is pleased to present Light Matter, the first of two exhibitions in partnership with the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide, which explores the intersections and influences between art and science.

Light Matter explores the influences of scientific research on artistic process and intention, and builds on a collaboration that began with LACMA’s innovative Art & Technology program, a collaboration between artists and industry that ran from the late 60s to early 70s. For a number of artists, this unique program led, unexpectedly, to a significant new way seeing and thinking about the purpose of a work of art. Enter Light & Space in Southern California, where the emphasis shifted from looking at art as “object”, to art as “experience”.

Artists in Light Matter continue to expand on this notion, experimenting with the possibilities of their materials, often through scientific research and innovation, to achieve heightened visual effects that engage the viewer in the wonder of the phenomenology of perception. They utilize materials and approaches that inspire the viewer to reflect - not only on “what” they are perceiving, but “how”. Many of the pieces require the viewer to interact with the works in unexpected ways - either by encouraging unusually active movement around, or stillness before, their works. The act of viewing engages the senses and heightens our sense of perception.

Light Matter includes work by Dawn Arrowsmith, Larry Bell, Casper Brindle, Shingo Francis, Jimi Gleason, Eric Johnson, Jay Mark Johnson, Peter Lodato, Andy Moses, and Roland Reiss.

Join us this Sunday, November 19th for an amazing exhibition of Ed Moses paintings "Emptiness is Form" at the Founders Gallery at SOKA University in Aliso Viejo, Orange County. The exhibition contains two floors of paintings that span 40 years from the collection of Doctor Kenneth Tokita.

The exhibition is not normally open on Saturdays or Sundays but it will be open on Sunday, November 19th from 12PM-5PM for this special viewing.

There will be a reception from 1PM- 3PM
Please RSVP to info@williamturnergallery.com

SOKA University
1 University Drive
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656

There is plenty of free parking in parking Lot 1 near the Founders Gallery.
We hope to see you there!