Lucas Reiner: Fireworks Paintings

Fireworks Paintings

In Lucas Reiner’s gallery debut he will present large oil paintings depicting the moment after the explosion from a fireworks display, the moment when the light is both dying out and about to re-appear. While the subject matter of fireworks is an ephemeral coming and going, so to is Reiner’s process with the heavily painted and re-painted surfaces reflecting the same coming and going as he adds and removes the imagery in an attempt to make permanent the impermanent.

Reiner’s firework paintings revel in contradictions. He is attempting to fix that which is fleeting, to work abstractly with representational imagery, and to work with an explosive image to create works of meditation. Reiner is looking for that moment after the fireworks display when you catch your breath and all is silent, the space between the light and the darkness. The explosions in the paintings are violent yet Reiner renders them as something filled with beautiful light, not unlike the “shock and awe” images we see on our television, images that appear beautiful and yet are the result of deadly violence.

Lucas Reiner has exhibited at Claudia Gian Ferrari Contemporanea, Turin, Italy, Roberts/Tilton Gallery, Los Angeles, LA Louver Gallery, Venice, Galerie Biederman, Munich, Germany. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.