Los Angeles Art Shows- Brian Rochefort at Sean Kelly

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Ceramic Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Sculptors / Sculpture
Oct 302024
 

Brian Rochefort’s ceramic sculptures for Staring at the Moon at Sean Kelly gallery are an incredible mix of textures and colors. Based on his travels to several natural environments around the world, the work combines the familiar with the unusual to form fascinating results.

From the gallery-

Brian Rochefort’s mixed-media sculptures incorporate a variety of different textures, surfaces and colors to create rich, otherworldly forms. Referencing his travels to some of the most remote parts of the planet, such as the Amazon Rainforest, the Galápagos Islands, and the Ngorongoro Crater, in Tanzania, he internalizes and translates his experiences in these secluded, ancient landscapes into potent sculptural forms.

Rochefort’s sculptures are built up in a unique process of layering, wherein the initial form undergoes multiple firings. Between each firing, he airbrushes the works and applies glazes, many of which he has developed himself through extensive experimentation. This process pushes the technical limits of ceramics in pursuit of evocative, otherworldly new forms. As he states, “Some of the most successful pieces that I’ve done in the past have been works that I’ve built up too fast… but somehow I’ve managed to save the form, and it turns into a different monster.” He works intuitively to build a composition, not unlike an abstract painter, and cites artists such as Albert Oehlen, Joan Mitchell, Franz West, and even photographer Aaron Siskind as influences for their daring deployment of color and texture. His virtuosic control of his medium is tempered by the element of chance inherent to the process of firing the sculpture. In this way, the completed works are the result of a dynamic interplay between his highly developed technique, the distinctive character of each sculpture, and ultimately chance.

Rochefort is equally inspired by his travels to remote and untouched ecosystems, such as barrier reefs and rainforests. A vital form of inspiration for him, the rare and vibrant natural forms found in such locations are apparent in the works. His intent, however, is not to directly represent the landscapes that he visits, a task he describes as “nearly impossible to do.” The sculptures take on the formal qualities of the landscapes through an almost volcanic layering of form upon form, color upon color, and texture upon texture, ultimately blooming into vivid, texturally sumptuous works. His larger freestanding works, which he refers to as Craters, evoke the fundamental quality of his sculptures: a powerful moment of contact with something deeply elemental and otherworldly.

The gallery also posted the video below where he discusses the work.

This exhibition closes 11/2/24.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Shirazeh Houshiary at Lisson

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Conceptual Art, Drawing, Los Angeles Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture
Oct 292024
 

“Earth Lament”, 2023, Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium

“Earth Lament”, 2023,Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium (detail)

“So Far So Near”, 2024, Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium

“So Far So Near”, 2024, Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium (detail)

“Cicada”, 2023, Pigment and pencil on Aquacryl on canvas and aluminium

Currently at Lisson Gallery is Shirazeh Houshiary: The Sound of One Hand, an exhibition of the artist’s new and recent work. For the paintings she combined distinct color formations with intricate patterns drawn on the surface using pencil. The details are astounding when seen up close.

From the press release-

For her first solo show in Los Angeles for over a decade, the British artist Shirazeh Houshiary presents new and recent works, exploring the origins of life and the mysteries of the cosmos, from a microscopic cellular level, to the stratospheric phenomenon of the aurora borealis. The show’s title relates to a Zen Buddhist teaching that instructs the student to listen to the sound of one hand clapping, in order to open their mind to such a possibility and transcend the constraints of the physical body. Despite not being a Zen practitioner, Houshiary realised that her work revolves around the insistent sound made by one of her hands, making tiny, looping, scratched marks in pencil onto large aluminum surfaces, building up worlds through the silence of her inscribed words.

Houshiary’s abstract paintings emerge from an initial pour of liquid color that floods the surface in irregular pools, before she then covers these areas with her own calligraphic gestures in graphite, which are in fact tiny repetitions of the Arabic phrases: “I am” and “I am not”, which she also likens to the natural act of inhaling and exhaling. For one of the two largest works in the show, entitled Enchanter (2024), Houshiary applies red pigment and pencil to a black ground in five ring shapes, recalling structures of carbon particles linked in a chain. Matching this in scale but cooler in tone, is the painting Earth Lament (2023), with two silhouetted blue figures that somehow materialized from the sedimented pigment, one appearing to soar and the other seemingly being dragged down. This accidental figuration also occurs in the work Cicada (2023), which could just as easily be a depiction of the wings of this insect as it could be a representation of its rhythmic song. At the other end of the scale are the galactic indigo swirls of So Far So Near (2024) and the bands of ethereal light crisscrossing the work titled Aurora (2023), recalling those seen occasionally streaking across a night sky.

Occupying the floor is a sculptural installation in nine parts, made from an open latticework of aluminum bricks in blue and green hues, each with the same footprint, but all at different heights, growing at increments of one layer at a time (the shortest has five layers, the highest thirteen). Entitled Maelstrom (2022), these curved forms, both hard and supple at the same time, recall not only the molecular structures of the red painting Enchanter, or “that primeval storm within the spiral of creation where something grows,” as the artist puts it, but also the shape of the ouroboros snake eating its own tail.

A second sculpture, seemingly another form defying logic and gravity, bursts from the wall. Its two sinuous, entangled lines are the artist’s approximation of the movement of a solitary wave – lending it the name Soliton (2024) – which is a type of swelling or surging motion that is not dependent on previous pulses, or followed by other waves. From such unfathomable objects, to minute molecules and gigantic expanses of space, Houshiary’s artworks represent a journey through everything from the chaos and messiness of the Big Bang to the silent contemplation of the resulting energies that surround every one of us.

This exhibition closes 11/2/24.

NYC Art Shows- Petrit Halilaj at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Conceptual Art, Installation Art, New York Art Shows, Sculptors / Sculpture
Oct 242024
 

For Petrit Halilaj‘s installation Abatare at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, he used children’s doodles found on desks in his former school in Kosovo to create  sculptures that bring these drawings to life around the outdoor garden. As a former refugee these drawings he found were personal to him and you can sense that in the way they are grouped together and his use of birds and flowers.

From the museum-

Halilaj was inspired by children’s doodles, drawings, and scribblings found on desks at the school he attended in Runik, Kosovo. For The Met commission, he expanded his research to other schools in Albania and countries from the former Yugoslavia, which are now undergoing significant cultural and sociopolitical change. Furtive drawings from kids’ desks have been enlarged into three-dimensional metal sculptures, each retaining the trace of the original. Together, they bring to public view the collective memory and imaginative power of generations of students whose lives were marked by traumatic conflicts and territorial divisions. Kosovo experienced the last of a series of wars in the Balkan region in the 1990s, during which many children were denied access to education on ideological grounds. Abetare borrows its title from the book the artist and his peers used to learn the alphabet at school, each letter linked to a lesson in pictures and text.

In Abetare, culturally specific references to different political ideologies, religions, and local heroes coexist with more universal symbols and playful nods to pop culture, art history, and sports. Spread around The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, the “drawings in space” merge with the surrounding architecture and landscape to create a multivocal scenography with an open-ended narrative. A celebration of the shared impulse for personal expression and mark making, Abetare is an opportunity for discovery and an invitation to expand our capacity to imagine transformative futures.

In the video below from The Met, Halilaj discusses the work with curator Iria Candela, including the discovery of the desks, and shares some of his personal history.

This exhibition closes 10/27/24.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Austin Lee at Jeffrey Deitch

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Digital Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture, Video and Film
Oct 232024
 

Austin Lee’s uses a combination of technology and traditional artistic techniques to create work in a variety of mediums for Psychomachia, his latest exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch. The saturated colors in his paintings (and the blue of the center sculpture) make them eye catching, while his subject matter creates, at times, a feeling of unease.

From the gallery-

Austin Lee knows how to render human emotion. Through a unique process that has defined his career, Lee explores human psychology and emotions by integrating software technologies with traditional methods of artmaking to produce vibrant paintings, sculptures and video works. Psychomachia marks Lee’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles in eight years and third exhibition with Jeffrey Deitch.

Lee’s work explores the hyperreality of social media and the internet, and, in this exhibition, he continues to explore the complexity of human connection that can be refracted through our digital age. He uses 3-D and virtual reality software to make drawings that are then painted on canvases with airbrush or fabricated in materials like resin and bronze. Lee turns inward and examines his own raw emotions through saturated hues and uncanny images.

The exhibition also draws inspiration from a transformative visit Lee made to the Giotto Chapel in Padua, Italy, where he was inspired by painted scenes from the 14th-century poem Psychomachia by Prudentius. The poem, which depicts the allegorical battle between virtues and vices for control over the human soul, served as an important source for several paintings in the exhibition. Some paintings show imagery that is directly pulled from the Chapel’s walls, while other paintings are quiet references to familiar symbols, like animals and families. Lion with Blue Eyes (2024), for example, conjures feelings of valiance and strength, whereas In Bed (2024) invites visitors to participate in a more unsettling sensation–– the feeling of being vulnerable or being under surveillance.

Central to the exhibition space is Blue Fountain (2022-2024), Lee’s fountain sculpture that was previously exhibited in his solo museum exhibition at the Lotte Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea in September 2023.

The mezzanine features a series of new video works that continue to explore surveilled environments and the disquieting feelings in the paintings. The animated figures ogle at the viewer from the same viewpoint as reflected in In Bed. It is common for Lee to build upon previous works, placing them in a rich, multidimensional visual world through rendering them in different media.

This exhibition is on view until 10/26/24.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Liz Larner at Regen Projects

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Ceramic Art, Conceptual Art, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Sculptors / Sculpture
Oct 232024
 

magnetic instinct, Liz Larner’s current exhibition at Regen Projects, balances the textures and colors of her unique ceramic sculptures with the simplicity of her 1989 work Rubber Divider. The show is also part of the Getty’s PST ART: Art and Science Collide programming.

From the press release-

“…for wander is a verb that needs no object…My aim is to limit myself to the ingenuity of innate action, to be awed by it, and not to try and clear up its mysteries.”
—Fernand Deligny, The Arachnean and Other Texts, 2015, pp. 37/46

The exhibition presents new ceramic works surrounding Larner’s “Rubber Divider, 1989—two sheets of pure gum rubber connected to steel rods attached to two flame-cut, solid steel blocks that hold the tension of the opposing pull of weight and elasticity of the rubber sheets. Their opposition and mutual dependence underscores Larner’s longstanding interest in the relationship between structural support and the attitude of the object.

Engaged with the many possibilities of sculpture and abstract form, Larner uses material to encourage discoveries led by an intrinsic link between impulse and perception. Polished to a mirror finish, the brass and aluminum of these sculptures allows them to be positioned on the wall, as the side of the glazed ceramic facing the wall is reflected in the cool light of aluminum and the warm glow of brass. Each surface has its own quality, from the extremely reflective to a textured matte, and these differences create a varying vibrancy of reflected light. Larner’s ceramics highlight a symbiotic continuity that troubles definitions of art and environment, object and subject.

Larner’s morphological research thinks likewise with ecological networks, as described in the writings of Fernand Deligny, or by the botanist Anne Pringle, in “Establishing New Worlds: The Lichens of Petersham.” The dialogue between these new works and Larner’s more historic sculpture, Rubber Divider—which debuted in the 1989 Whitney Biennial—underscores the interplay between support, form, surface effect, and infrastructure, that has often animated her practice, exploring how our observed experience of the world is innately personal but based on connection. Mindful of the specter of the Anthropocene, it also occasions a meditation on how we distinguish past and present, wondering what forms, what artifacts of human action and intelligence will last, and outlast us.

Distinguished by the unique physical rules that govern its transition, from soft to fragile to almost indestructible, Larner engages clay in part because of its apparent self-determination and pliancy, a kind of material agency and chemical intelligence distinct from our own. The ceramic forms in this exhibition are molded by impressions with ubiquitous forms made with a precision that often goes unnoticed. These forms are softened by the contact of the clay being shaped by them. The consequence of this method of forming is ghostly and transpositional. Among many other potential interpretations and resonances, the exhibition’s title points to these principles, and likens them to the same encodings that inform human perception and the activity of many other life-forms, as we are learning to be of and with.

Larner’s work is also currently on view as part of Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean at the Orange County Museum of Art and For Dear Life: Art, Medicine, and Disability at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego . Both shows are also part of PST ART: Art and Science Collide.

For more on her creative process, and earlier work, check out the video below from Art21 in 2016.

 

 

Los Angeles Art Shows- Sarah Ippolito at VSF

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Ceramic Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Sculptors / Sculpture
Oct 182024
 

Currently at VSF LA are Sarah Ippolito’s new colorful sculptures inspired by aquatic creatures for her exhibition Liquid Realm.

From the gallery-

The ocean is what makes the earth habitable, without the ocean life is not possible, “in a way we’re all sea creatures” – Sylvia Earle

Los Angeles-based Ippolito’s exuberantly biomorphic sculptures are inspired by time spent underwater, immersed in contemplation of the umwelt of aquatic creatures and the central role of the oceans in the health and wellbeing of people and our planet. Divided between the &Milk project space and the VSF courtyard, Ippolito’s exhibition considers the differing sensory environments and inhabitants of the sunlit shallows and the expansive open ocean. While the ocean covers more than 70% of the planet’s surface and contains roughly 97% of Earth’s biosphere, life underwater and the nature of the ocean often feels alien. Ippolito’s works bring some of this vibrancy and abundance onto dry land.

Color and texture are central to Ippolito’s work – her sculptures are recognizable not only for their uncanny and whimsical shapes, but for her use of bright color, evocative texture, and shifts in scale. For Ippolito, color expresses exuberance, optimism, and vitality. Intricate and tactile textured surfaces are dynamic and invite curiosity and engagement. Scale is used as a way to disrupt expected hierarchies, the viewer may feel they have been shrunk or the forms they look at magnified; each scale relationship impacts the experience of her body in space and in relationship to others. Scale is also a key in our relationship to the ocean – In its vastness, the ocean feels as unknowable as outer space and yet, somehow, it is also as familiar as our own backyards. The lively nature of Ippolito’s work is underscored by the use of active verbs in the titles for all of her new works: Filtering, Undulating, and Fanning their names describe the range of movement implied by their forms.

In the courtyard, Ippolito presents her first cast bronze sculpture. Standing at just about the same height as the artist, the form blends shapes and textures from a Salp spiral (phylum Chordata) and the tentacles of Portuguese man o’ war (phylum Cnidaria.) Both “creatures” are colonies of individual organisms. The bold cobalt-blue figure stands erect, its tentacles meandering and sensing its surroundings. Nearby an installation of hand-formed ceramic shapes represents a bloom of Phytoplankton – tiny single celled organisms that drift in the upper layer of the ocean using photosynthesis to transform carbon dioxide into oxygen. The word “plankton” comes from the Greek word for “drifter” or “wanderer.” It’s estimated that roughly 50% of the oxygen on Earth is produced by oceanic phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are the primary producers of the ocean – offering food for a range of organisms from small filter feeders like salps to massive whale sharks. Phytoplankton also play a crucial role in regulating the atmosphere in the biological carbon pump – absorbing carbon dioxide at the surface and as they die they sink to the bottom (marine snow) and sequester carbon in the deep ocean. The forms in this piece are inspired by the most abundant types of phytoplankton – the diatoms, dinoflagellates, green algae, cyanobacteria, and coccolithophores.

In &Milk a group of table-top scaled works and a large figural work inspired by a range of creatures from the phylum Cnidaria (sea anemones, jellyfish, coral, sea fans) and phylum Annelida (feather duster and tube worms) are on view. These are some of the earliest life forms to evolve on the planet after phytoplankton transformed the atmosphere of the Earth to one hospitable for animal life – appearing between about 635 million and 515 million years ago, they have survived 5 mass extinctions. Abounding with color, these animals are sometimes naturally pigmented or get their distinctive coloration from symbiotic algae that live in their tissues. They possess a unique form of intelligence; operating without a brain and sometimes with rudimentary eyes. With their flexible tentacles that are sensitive to the slightest touch and vibrations they reach into the open water to filter feed plankton or capture small prey.

By reimagining marine organisms and their adaptations, Ippolito invites viewers to explore the hidden wonders of our oceans and consider the interconnectedness of all life. Her creative practice, rooted in direct observation and scientific exploration, embodies the potential of art to spark environmental reflection. In a world where the health of our oceans is increasingly vital, Ippolito’s work reminds us of our deep connection to the vast liquid realm that defines our planet.

This exhibition closes 10/19/24.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Lita Albuquerque at Michael Kohn Gallery

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Conceptual Art, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture
Oct 162024
 

Lita Albuquerque’s exhibition of new work for Earth Skin, on view at Michael Kohn Gallery, includes several dramatic blue paintings and a huge installation piece on the floor of the gallery that grabs your attention the moment you enter the gallery.

From the gallery-

Beginning her career in the 1970s with works that intimately connected her to the earth, Albuquerque’s artistic evolution envelops the cosmos and the space between it and us. Her work emanates from years of practicing the exact science of Kundalini breath technique as well as automatic writing; both drive a deep investigation and scientific inquiry of who we are as individual beings on this planet. Albuquerque further connects to the exactness of physics by a meditation she, and astronomers, call the cosmic address. These daily practices are at the root of her art, precisely positioning self to cosmos. It is those discoveries she embeds in works of art that permit us, the viewer, to experience the connections she has made between these internal and external worlds.

Thinking about the exhibition, Albuquerque writes:
Feet dancing above the earth, dancing with fervor, drumming, the increasing drumming of the feet not fragile on the fragile earth.

The wisps of bodies, like skins falling off their frames leaving the planet, the planet strong and our forms ethereal, the strength of us, our feet, on the fragile earth, the wispy lightness of us, detached from the earth, transforming into space.

The earth strong behind us, propelling us upward, giving us her strength, throwing us in the air, while we fly, never falling, the fierce intensity of our rhythm while alive, and the freedom of release from the earth.

Experiments of intensities of emotions and colors, whirling dervishes’ cyclones, Earth Skin is whispered, “Earth Skin” she whispered.

For PST’s Art and Science Collide, Albuquerque transforms the gallery with a titular installation, Earth Skin. A membrane of decomposed granite fills the space creating the illusory sensation of the earth being revealed below the gallery, as if the concrete floor has been meticulously removed. Accompanying this installation is a new series of paintings revolving around the gestures of the body and ancient marks, like a hieroglyphic code only the artist has a key for. With each gesture, Albuquerque embraces the tactile intimacy of painting, reminding us of the power of capturing and transforming the elusive into the material. This installation invites viewers to explore the shared fragility of humanity and earth.

Two of the paintings, picutred below, include poems referencing fellow artist Ana Mendieta, who was known in part for her “earth-body” work and who passed away tragically in 1985.

“Propelling Us Upwards, She, The Earth, Throwing Us In The Air While We Fly, Never Falling, A Poem for A.M.”, 2024, Pigment on Canvas

“Desire and Memory, A Poem for A.M.”, 2024, Pigment on canvas

This exhibition is part of The Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: Art and Science Collide an arts event taking place in various venues around Southern California.

For more information on Lita Albuquerque and her work Red Canary Magazine recently published an excellent article that is worth a read as well.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Becky Tucker at Steve Turner

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Ceramic Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Sculptors / Sculpture
Oct 102024
 

The ceramic sculptures above are from Becky Tucker’s Umbra, currently on view at Steve Turner in Los Angeles. The Glasgow-based artist’s work is inspired by “the history of Britain’s lost villages”.

From the gallery-

Tucker relishes working with fired ceramic, the very material that survives for thousands of years. She uses white stoneware that is glazed several times as well as faux suede dyed with indigo to assemble the pieces of her larger works. The idea of lost artifacts is at the root of her practice and the objects she creates cannot be clearly placed in a specific time period. Her mix of source imagery–Chinese tomb guardians, fossils, motorcycle armor, medieval illuminated manuscripts and Indian theater costumes–complicates identifying the origin of the works. Tucker’s works imply that the past can be as shadowy as the future.

This exhibition closes 10/12/24.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Luca Sára Rózsa and Dickens Otieno at Steve Turner

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Fiber Arts, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture
Oct 102024
 

Luca Sára Rózsa, “The Changing (War)”, 2024, Oil on canvas

Luca Sára Rózsa, “The Changing (Peace)”, 2024, Oil on canvas

Dickens Otieno, “Tethered White Cow”, 2024, Aluminum cans woven on galvanized coffee tray mesh

Currently at Steve Turner in Los Angeles is the two person exhibition E-scape, featuring new paintings by Budapest-based Luca Sára Rózsa and weavings by Nairobi-based Dickens Otieno.

From the gallery-

Both artists make works about the environment and humanity’s connection to it. Rózsa uses loose and expressive brush strokes in lustrous color to depict feral humans in nature. Four of her works relate to the elements of fire, water, air and earth while two relate to war and peace. Otieno creates large-scale colorful wall weavings and floor sculptures made of strips of soda cans. Whether depicting a rural or urban scene, he uses aluminum cans to emphasize the impact of humans on the environment. E-scape suggests a new genre of landscape painting, one that conveys the widespread anxiety for our planet’s future.

This exhibition closes on 10/12/24.

California Art Shows- Norman Zammitt at Palm Springs Art Museum

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Conceptual Art, Painting / Painters, Palm Springs, Sculptors / Sculpture
Oct 032024
 

“Caly-forny-ay”, 1987, acrylic on canvas

“Caly-forny-ay”, 1987, acrylic on canvas, detail

“Green One” 1975, acrylic on canvas

“Arctic Yellow”, 1975, acrylic on canvas

“One”, 1973, acrylic on canvas

“North Wall”, 1976, acrylic on canvas

“Untitled”, 1977, acrylic on canvas board

“Blue and Yellow Elysium”, 1977, acrylic on canvas board

Norman Zammitt: Gradations, currently on view at Palm Springs Art Museum, highlights the artist’s exploration of color and pattern through his large and small paintings, as well as his sculptural work.

From the museum-

This exhibition highlights Norman Zammitt’s extensive experiments with color and patterns through sculptures, prints, and paintings created between 1964 and 1991. Perceiving a divide between existing color theories and his own direct observation, Zammitt sought new ways of methodically organizing colors in his works across media. By the mid-1970s, he developed a complex mathematical system for mixing pigments in subtly varied shades. Arranging horizontal sections of solid colors in his signature band paintings, the artist produced a broad range of radiant color spectra.

Gradations is the first museum exhibition of Zammitt’s works since 1988. While he earned acclaim and exhibited widely during his lifetime, Zammitt’s achievements have not been as thoroughly examined as those of his peers in the Light and Space movement. This exhibition explores Zammitt’s unique position between West Coast Hard-Edge painting and California Light and Space art and provides insights into his underrecognized artistic accomplishments.

Born in 1931 to Mohawk and Sicilian parents in Toronto, Zammitt spent time on the Kahnawake reservation outside of Montreal before moving to Southern California at age fourteen. Until his death in 2007, Zammitt lived and worked in Los Angeles for the majority of his artistic career.

Zammitt also created paintings using jagged shapes for his “fractal” or “chaos” paintings, two of which are below.

From the museum-

Zammitt produced a series of large paintings based on his consideration of chaos theory. In these works, which he referred to as his “fractal” or “chaos” paintings, outlined shapes appear to fracture or break up the visual space of the canvas while the colors form a larger gradation. He transferred his systematic studies of color progressions into loosely ordered arrangements that contrast organization and irregularity. Zammitt drew inspiration from the mathematical concept that patterns emerge when seemingly random states of disorder and chaos are analyzed within a larger context.

“Triptych XI”, 1992, acrylic on canvas

“Triptych XI”, 1992, acrylic on canvas, detail

“First Fractal”, 1989, acrylic on canvas

“First Fractal”, 1989, acrylic on canvas, detail

The sculptural works in the exhibition continue his exploration of color and pattern, but using plastic.

From the museum-

Zammitt created new forms of sculpture and printmaking through his explorations of geometric shapes and patterns. Across both media, the artist developed methods of layering patterns to create mesmerizing visual effects. Through his sculptural works, he contributed to the emergence of plastic as an accepted artistic material. Zammitt arranged painted plexiglass sheets so as to juxtapose volume and transparent space in his boxes and rectangular sculptures. In his pole sculptures, he further explored sequences of color and transformed plastic by fusing together layers of colored acrylic. Zammitt also experimented with color and patterns in his lithograph prints, which overlay slightly offset arrangements of geometric forms.

Below are a selection of Zammitt’s plastic pole sculptures made of the layers of colored acrylic described above.

This exhibition closes 10/6/24.

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