James Lavadour Recent Findings May 20 – July 1, 2017
Opening reception Saturday May 20th, 2017 | 6-8pm The artist will be present
4107 Hillsboro Circle, Nashville, TN 37215 www.cumberlandgallery.com
Please call for prices 615 297 0296 or info@cumberlandgallery.com
Recent Findings by James Lavadour is in conjugation with State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now, curated by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and exhibited at The Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, TN from May 26th through September 10th, 2017.
“I began this whole process of extracting a certain kind of knowledge from nature just by engaging with nature. I tried to tell myself not to think — just walk, just see, just feel, just hear. … I was looking for something that has as much life as the nature that I was experiencing. I did not want a representation, or a depiction, or a portrayal. I wanted something that was an actual event, that was as lifelike as the land that I was walking on.” James Lavadour in The Seattle Times, June 16th, 2011.
I Remember Everything, 2016, oil on panel, 90 x 102�
Ruby II, 2016, oil on panel, 32 x 48”
Red Wing, 2016, oil on panel, 32 x 48�
Rise, 2016, oil on panel, 32 x 28�
Tiger, 2016, oil on panel, 32 x 28�
Red House Suite I, 2017, oil on panel, 28 x 32�
Red House Suite II, 2017, oil on panel, 28 x 32�
Red House Suite III, 2017, oil on panel, 28 x 32�
Red House Suite IV, 2017, oil on panel, 28 x 32�
Red House SuiteV, 2017, oil on panel, 28 x 32�
Fish Bone, 2017, oil on paper, 20 x 28�, framed
Raga, 2017, oil on paper, 20 x 28�, framed
Sweet Water, 2017, oil on paper, 20 x 28�, framed
Selected Resume Selected Solo Exhibitions • 2013, 2010, 2006, and 2004 Cumberland Gallery, Nashville, TN • 2008 The Properties of Paint, Hallie Ford Museum, Willamette University, Salem, OR • 2005 Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, IN Selected Group Exhibitions • 2017 State of The Art: Discovering American Art Now, Traveling exhibition, First Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN • 2016 Portland Biennial, Disjecta, Portland, OR. Curated by Michelle Grabner • 2014 State of the Art , Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR • 2013 Venice Biennale, Personal Structures, Palazzo Bembo, Venice, Italy • 2010 Vantage Point: The Contemporary Native Art Collection, Smithsonian
Institute National Museum of the • 2007 Off-the-Map: Landscape in the Native Imagination, Smithsonian Institute National Museum of the American Indian, New York, NY (catalogue)
Selected Museum Collections • Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR • Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C. • Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR • The Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ • Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN • Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Sante Fe, NM Selected Awards • Award for Visual Arts, Flintridge Foundation, Pasadena, CA • “1998 Joan Mitchell Award,” Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York, NY • “1991 Betty Bowen Memorial Recognition Award ,” Seattle Art Museum, Washington
Press Release Lavadour’s national reputation hails him as much more than a great landscape painter. While his abstract paintings evoke the mountains and cliffs native to his Oregon home, Lavadour considers himself an “abstract action painter,” translating land into physical erosion of paint on surface. Often using a Richter-esque squeegee technique, he glazes and scrapes paint, later wiping it away to reveal layers of sediment and history. The artist improvises through a series of marks or ”events” followed by his reactions to them. Relating this improvisation to jazz music, the result is always different, fresh, and energized. While working in this active process on several paintings at once, Lavadour achieves an elegant balance of focus and abandon. Even though he views color as more of a necessary tool than a starting point, Lavadour’s brilliant, fiery hues, sometimes saturated or smokey, vibrate with energy of the elements. Inspired by his routine early-morning walks in the Blue Mountains of the Umatilla Reservation, Lavadour’s work relates to the “spirit of the mountain.“ His stunning references to fire express a regenerative force in nature. The built-up layered surfaces read like the evolved sediment which inspired them, casting a glimpse of transcendental power and cosmic depth. According to Lavadour, the work does not merely reflect his heritage or simply depict his understanding of the land. The work is energy and existence, nature, discovery, and universal truths as much as it expresses personal epiphanies. The creation exceeds the creator. Cumberland Gallery, Press Release Recent Findings by James Lavadour, March 2017