FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
James Hayward, The Emancipation of Paint: Solo exhibition
Paper Cuts: Group exhibition of works on paper
April 6 – June 17, 2006
Opening Receptions: Thursday, April 6, 7-10 pm
1225 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
Tel, 310-798-0102, Fax, 310-798-0039
For enquires please contact Gallery Executive Director, Nancy Silverman-Miles
E-mail, info@galleryc.com
Web site, http://www.galleryc.com
Hours, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 11am - 6pm; Thursday 11am to 8pm; Sunday 12pm – 5pm
James Hayward, “Abstract #76”, 2004, oil on canvas on wood panel, 88" x 77".
Main Gallery
James Hayward: THE EMANCIPATION OF PAINT
The self-proclaimed “drunken master” James Hayward returns to Gallery C in his solo exhibition, The Emancipation of Paint. Gallery C originally featured Hayward’s impasto-style oil-on-canvas works in the 2003 four-man exhibition Drunken Masters, which inspired much acclaim for the artist as a highly-gifted painter and legendary hell raiser. That aside, Hayward has reached a new stride in his career for nothing less than exceptional art work and he will be featuring his most recent works at Gallery C April 6 through June 17, 2006.
Referring to The Emancipation of Paint, Hayward gests that he “paints fast so he can get back to more important interests like reading,” but his work would never appear to have been rushed. In fact, his paintings take anywhere from two to four months in their initial drying period due to the heavy impasto-style that Hayward favors. As a result of this style, his paintings often take on the feeling of a sculpture relief as the crests of paint rise up and off the canvas.
“The Emancipation of Paint is not so much a retrospective of the 63-year-old art veteran’s work, as it is a celebration of where his career and work is heading,” says Gallery C Executive Director Nancy Silverman-Miles. “Hayward’s work makes a strong impact. I believe this is because he is such a highly layered and disarmingly intellectual person and artist. He brings so much wisdom and passion to his work and the California art scene. Most recently, collectors are clamoring for his paintings and he is known as one of the inspirations for the ‘paint on paint’ art movement that is taking hold in Europe. The gallery is extremely excited to be a part of it all.”
In James Hayward’s solo exhibition The Emancipation of Paint, the word that surfaces is impact. There is the impact of the color itself in his monochromatic works, which has a brightness and density that is as visceral as it is visual. Then there is its physicality, the visible evidence of its making, the impact of pigment brushed, pushed, ground into, and all but swept off the canvas. Were it not so manifestly painting – and, in a sense, the purest kind of painting – it would be tempting to call it a kind of object-making, and not merely because of surface density that risks veering into the domain of relief, if not sculpture.
Hayward’s painting exerts a tidal pull on us – sweeping us forward into alternately confectionary surfaces and roiling depths, and then rolling us back a piece as our visual apparatus tries to re-focus, regain its bearings. This is not a straightforward process. Focus is diffused over the entire painting’s surface, in variably continuous and discontinuous motion. Strictly speaking, there is no single focus; it shifts from one brushstroke to the next, from one depth and elevation to the next wave or trench of pigment. The color shocks us with its variable density and brightness – pushing us back as we begin to register its complexity and drawing us forward again as we plumb its chromatic range. But as we scan the surface, we meet an odd reversal: the eye wanders up, down, from swale to crest of brushstroke, seemingly in every direction without quite reaching one edge or the other.
Jennifer Poon, “Untitled(bed)”, 2006, watercolor on paper, 70” x 65”.
Front Gallery
Group Exhibition: Paper Cuts
The artists included in Gallery C’s Paper Cuts, are influenced by sexuality, pop culture, desire, nature and human emotions. They are provocative and explore and test contemporary subjects through their works on paper. In the search for artists who embodied the new form of paper, Gallery C’s executive director and curator, Nancy Silverman-Miles compiled a group that tests the limits of subject matter. With this traditional medium, the contemporary act is in the subject, allowing for cutting edge content and themes.
Paper has been around for centuries but the trend towards a classic medium in contemporary art is no accident. Post-modernism has been about finding what is modern about art, whether it is exploration of new subjects but often, it is about exploring new mediums. Photography, acrylic paint, mixed media, found objects and installation have all taken art to the depths of contemporary expression. While these forms of medium have solidified their place in all that is modern, artists have gone back to their roots and found the relevance of “old” ways – oil paint, canvas, linen, drawings and paper.
Artists are taking the simplicity and elegance of traditional works on paper to the psychological, edgy, dark and even whimsical side. Gone are the drawings and landscape watercolors – these artists play with the surreal, supernatural, comic and avant-garde. Artists featured in Paper Cuts include Yun Bai, Andrew Foster, Aaron Kraten, Ludovico Marenzi, Lilli Muller, Jennifer Poon and Trine Wejp-Olson. An excerpt of the artists follows.
Young Chinese American artist Yun Bai dives into the darker sides of sex and pop culture, particularly porn magazines with her porn flowers series, this time on paper. From afar, Bai’s paper collage looks like Asian inspired flowers and vines. But up close, the viewer will see a collage of twisted legs, genitalia and breasts punctuating the blossoms and trailing like leaves across the picture plane. Heavily influenced by Asian art, Bai draws upon her own experience as a young woman living in a culture that labels her as a sex object and turns the label into a satire of what women’s bodies have become.
German born, Los Angeles based artist Lilli Muller draws her inspiration on sexuality, female anatomy, motherhood, childbirth and feminism. In her drawings, languid shapes thin and bulge in red ribbons against a white background. The reds vary in texture in tone, from a dark lacquer red to a velvety pale crimson. Like arteries, they twist and snake their way across the paper, harking rage, anger, lust and desire.
Jennifer Poon’s second series, watercolors on paper, convey a strong sense of a dark emotional state and weight of being. The internal struggle becomes external in her female figures and the viewer appears to happen upon the scene. The awkwardness of the private moment provides a stark juxtaposition of reality and memory. Transient elements of nature, such as birds, plants and flowers reconnect the subject and the viewer to the harsh realism of the present.
Comprehensive artist information is available upon request.
