FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lawrence Asher Gallery presents
Lola Del Fresno – Rejuvenation
Carrie Jardine – Wild At Heart
Rebecca Lowry – Not There, There
April 19 - May 17, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 19, 6 - 10 pm
5820 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 100, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Contact, James Panozzo
323-935-9100, Fax 323-935-9113
E-mail: james@lawrenceasher.com
Web site: http://www.lawrenceasher.com
Gallery hours, Tuesday – Friday 11am – 5pm, Saturday, 12noon - 5pm
Lola Del Fresno “Survival” Acrylic, Ink, Graphite, Watercolor on paper mounted on canvas fixed on wood, 48" x 96”.
LAG presents Spanish painter and sculptor, Lola Del Fresno in her first exhibition with us. Rejuvenation offers selections from several of her ongoing series. Her sensitive, defiant figures command our attention with delicacy and specificity in near life-size renderings on panel. She further exercises command of her elegant, minimalist hand in the presentation of several works from her flower and fauna series. The delicate garden quietly fills the gallery with a whisper of tranquility. The guarded use of color empowers the line while the textured white and gray scales complete the forms exquisitely.
Organic, playful and sexy describe Carrie Jardine's appealing figurative drawings on paper applied to canvas or board. The sultry, slinky female forms inhabit their natural kingdoms without inhibition.
The quiet calm continues as you encounter Rebecca Lowry's tactile messages through literal and conceptual communication modes. Fabric, board, metals and other innovative mediums and presentation techniques adorn the walls and more.
Please join us for the opening reception of these exceptional solo shows on Saturday, April 19th, 2008, 6 – 10 pm.
LAG is located at 5820 Wilshire Boulevard , Los Angeles , across the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and adjacent to the Craft and Folk Art Museum . Parking is available on Wilshire Blvd. and behind 5858 Wilshire Boulevard . Enter on Stanley Ave. For more information, please call 323.935.9100 or visit http://www.lawrenceasher.com
The Artists
Lola Del Fresno - I am an artist from Madrid , Spain . I came to the United States after receiving a grant to attend Cooper Union in Manhattan and remained in New York for three years. For the past six years, I have been sponsored by Andrew Weissman, a collector from Washington , D.C. He discovered me during my solo show at Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco . I now live in Sausalito and Santa Monica.
My works are usually life-sized figures ranging from 10"x10" to 103"x61". I work on paper laid over canvas and mounted on wooden frames. I then use acrylic, graphite, inks and resins to create my images. I would define my work as Abstract Realism with a Conceptual emphasis.
I focus on humanism, inspired by the Renaissance, with principal attention on the figure. My subjects are usually naked in order to minimize social references while emphasizing existential issues to which anyone can relate.
By painting people, I magnify their existence and their values. I treat these images as sacred forms, almost as icons. I try to avoid any social elements in order to make a more universal statement. The finished pieces confront the viewer with an experience of the inner self.
The work describes the constant battle of the senses, a tension existing in our physical selves between the spirit and the material, the perishable and the eternal. Sometimes I trace an actual figure on paper to reproduce an almost exact image. The individual and the sense of individuality appear and then disappear with the loss of identity. The head remains open, without a limit line, in order to integrate the abstract nature of the mind within the image.
My figures reside in a timeless space. Even so, one can feel the constant motion of time through them. With every moment comes death and also renewal. I think of infinities and limits.
I progress from the very minimal to the more detailed and complex. I use very few elements to create my work. I avoid excess by constructing and washing out the image. ~ Lola del Fresno
Carrie Jardine - I am a self-taught artist and have been drawing for as long as I can remember. My influences range from 20 th century Art Nouveau to 1970's Playboy magazines. Even so, I'm not sure influences matter. Music has also played an important role in my life. It surrounds me while I paint and therefore exists within each line of my work.
My art is an exploration of the female form. The sophisticated sexiness of soft, natural bodies moving freely and elegantly, the experience of feeling loved, unbounded, confident. It's a story that has no beginning and no end, much like the blurred line between human form and nature. The world in which my characters live is an organic, stylized web of trees and vines weaving in and amongst one another. The story of my beauties plays out here. They're alone and they're together. Like the rest of us, each painting is only a tiny piece of this infinite world. ~ Carrie Jardine
Rebecca Lowry - In my work, I create relationships between texts, objects and actions as a means of modifying and reinforcing the associations already inherent in them.
Content, media and method are carefully selected and integrated with one another. The resulting relationships illuminate the meaning of each component and thereby create a whole with potential for consideration of larger ideas. Media and methods recurring in my work include: poetry, knitting, common technologies, and systems of communication.
Specific issues brought to the fore by these new juxtapositions include:
- specifying meaning
- opening inherent associations and/or understandings to interpretation - transforming intended meaning
- suggesting new associations
- exposing subtexts inherent in overt communication
I address perception of content by means of sight, sound and touch, each in its own way. Colors, associations, and the interpretation of content inform my creations.
I consider time's continuity and discontinuity. Some ideas transcend time, some fade in a moment. A single object can carry associations tied to the present while others resonate through centuries. It's the eternal colored by the here and now.
Concerning the presence of meaning, where does meaning lie and at what point is meaning lost? There is the undeniable intrigue of knowing something hidden within, overtly revealing hidden meanings. My works render meaning wholly inaccessible while leaving suggestions of its presence.
Works currently in progress include a series of paper pieces into which Braille is shot with handguns and several audio-only pieces consisting of poetry broadcast as Morse Code. ~ Rebecca Lowry 2008
