Abstraction

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WHEN: August 9 through September 2, 2006

HOURS: TUESDAY – SATURDAY 11-6 or by appointment

OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, August 12, 6-9 p.m.




ABSTRACTION

Carl Berg Gallery is pleased to present “Abstraction” our second group of the summer of 2006. Like “Debut,” our first show of the summer, this exhibition will feature artists that are new to the gallery. The artists are: Karen Herold, Brian Hollister, Norm Looney, Nicola Staeglich and Richard Wilson.

“Abstraction” is part of a 5-gallery and one museum group of exhibitions opening in late summer that focus on abstraction. The participating galleries are the Berman/Turner Projects, d.e.n. contemporary art, Patricia Faure Gallery and Pharmaka. The Riverside Art Museum will host “Driven to Abstraction,” an exhibition that co-curator Peter Frank describes as “a small but, we hope, provocative contribution to the reassessment of southern California art history.” In a similarly-minded exhibition curated by Dave Hickey at Otis’ Ben Maltz Gallery titled “The Los Angeles School: Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley, June Harwood, Helen Lundeberg and John McLaughlin,” the exhibition surveyed abstract painting in Los Angeles.

“Abstraction” is not a survey of abstraction in Los Angeles, but rather a show of artists who live or have lived in Los Angeles and portrays the effect the experience has had on their work.

Karen Herold paintings are non-objective works that reminds one of the California Light and Space artists. Her work, however, also closely relates to pattern painting and more gestural work. Her synthesis of different approaches creates an ethereal quality that is formed by the light reflected through layers and layers of paint.

In contrast Richard Wilson paintings are hard edge and seemingly more definitive. He creates simple geometric shapes that are contrasted by his unique use of color. The interaction of the shape and colors produces an ambiguity that make his work much less defined than one may observe at first glance.

Brian Hollister explores the middle ground between the defined and undefined. His painting references the So Cal desert landscape, but it is the light of the desert that is key to his work. His paintings are both textured and luminous at the same time, surfing the murky area between representation and abstraction.

Nicola Staeglich is an abstract painter from Germany who has been on a one-year residency at Art Center College of Art and Design. Like Hollister, she has explored the desert landscape and will exhibit one large painting from this body of work. Staeglich has been inspired by landscape for many years, but it is through her investigation of the natural wonders of the California and Southwest landscape that has brought her interest in nature to new heights.

Norm Looney’s investigation of large-scale drawing might remind one of the myriads of artists working in that medium today. Looney’s drawings, however, are formed through his own discovery of landscape from his vivid imagination. His obsessive drawings are clearly abstract but have references that are not terrestrial.

The light and landscape of Southern California has played an important role in the work of many Southern California artists. In “Abstraction” we see the influence of this environment on artists who have been here for a range of time from a little as a year to those who have resided in the Southland their wholes lives.

Contact information: Carl Berg

Tel: 323-931-6060