Scot Heywood: Planar Variations

SCOT HEYWOOD: PLANAR VARIATIONS

SCOT HEYWOOD

PLANAR VARIATIONS

SCOT HEYWOOD

PLANAR VARIATIONS

JULY 12–SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

MODERNISM INC. | 724 ELLIS ST | SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109

Special Relativity

By Jonathon Keats

From the day he first picked up a paintbrush, Scot Heywood knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish. Heywood has been single-mindedly focused for the past half century on “the experiential possibilities of a nonrepresentational geometric abstract painting”.

Although he was inspired by the pioneering abstraction of Kasimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, Heywood came of age in 1970s Los Angeles, where masters such as John McLaughlin were perfecting a hard-edge aesthetic and fetish finish that would make Broadway Boogie Woogie seem figurative by comparison. Absorbing the work in his midst, including the emphatically nonrepresentational painting of contemporaries such as James Hayward, Ed Moses, Edith Baumann, Mary Corse, and John M. Miller, Heywood developed a unique approach that forefronts “the frontal nature of the painted plane, precognitive experience, and, ultimately, singularity.”

Like other painters of the period, he began his quest by creating monochromatic panels, modulating light in terms of the relationship between color and the painted surface. In this way, he effectively addressed Clement Greenberg’s 1961 assertion that “The first mark on a canvas destroys its literal and utter flatness,” which, Greenberg argued, led artists such as Mondrian to produce “a kind of illusion that suggests a kind of third dimension.”

Yet it was an early accident that led to Heywood’s crucial breakthrough, distinguishing his work and establishing his future direction. While organizing monochrome paintings on his studio floor, he observed the chromatic relationship between them, and also noticed the lines made when they were set side-by-side. These marks were not illusionistic, but a con1

sequence of the physicality of the canvases: crevasses accentuated by shadow. Another physical parameter became apparent when he set the canvases on the wall and one of them slipped out of alignment. “Suddenly I had gravity,” he recalls. “Suddenly I had tension on an extreme level that I couldn’t get from lining them up evenly.”

In other words, the pure abstraction of painting, which had previously been limited by the pictorial connotations of painted lines and proportional distribution of colors, was paradoxically facilitated by the paintings becoming sculptural. The third dimension – literal instead of illusionistic – provided the degrees of freedom denied to the painter by Greenberg’s 1961 polemic.

With the compositional potential of abutment and juxtaposition, together with his command of color and texture, Heywood had all he needed to explore the experiential possibilities of abstraction on his own highly personal terms. Ever since, it’s been a matter subtle incremental change. “It’s like a four- or five-year period and then – boom! – just a minor shift,” he says.

To look at the thirteen paintings in Planar Variations, created by Heywood between 2008 and 2020, is to see the encompassing power of Heywood’s profound engagement with what might appear at first to be a simple premise. The paintings all enlist Heywood’s multi-panel format to achieve tension and balance. Although they range in scale, their physical presence is always commanding. Building on their sculptural foundations, they are all effectively architectural, the walls acting as a support for their visual structuring of the surrounding space and the viewer’s perceptual experience.

Heywood’s handling of gravity is a decisive factor. In paintings such as Double Edge – Yellow, Blue, Gray and Double Edge – Red, Blue, Yellow, he uses slippage of a panel to evoke a gravitational difference between different color weights. Initially it might appear that he is merely literalizing a metaphoric equivalence, illustrating the double meaning of weight. But what Heywood is actually doing is far more original on a conceptual level. Heywood is working with the material foundations of metaphor, achieving visually what the poet does linguistically. Eschewing words and their inherent symbolism, the impact is arguably more direct.

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Double Edge – Yellow, Blue, Gray, 2007-08, acrylic on canvas over panel, 46 x 44 inches

The slippages also introduce physical asymmetries that, because the paintings are so perfectly balanced visually, make the room seem to tilt and torque. In effect, the spectator’s eyes view the paintings as reality, and the mind compensates for the surprising internal geometry of the art by distorting everything else. These effects are especially pronounced in Heywood’s Haibuke series, though all of his paintings over the past several decades can likewise be understood relativistically.

Within each of his paintings, Piet Mondrian sought to achieve a quality he called “dynamic equilibrium.” Through his arrangement of multiple panels, Heywood takes dynamic equilibrium beyond the confines of the picture plane to include the space occupied by the viewer.

Ultimately the dynamic equilibrium is kinesthetic, experienced in the spectator’s own body.

As Heywood explains, “the structural and coloristic intent is always directed towards a dynamic/static tension, forcing the viewer into not simply a conceptualization of the work, but one that allows for a physical relationship between viewer and painting.” As a consequence of this relationship, the entire world is implicated in Heywood’s art. All that is not illusionistic participates in his abstraction.

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PLATES

Double Edge – Red, Blue, Yellow, 2007, acrylic on canvas over panel, 80 x 72 inches 8

Double Edge – Yellow, Blue, Gray, 2007/08, acrylic on canvas over panel, 46 x 44 inches 10

Compression – Gray, Red, Canvas, 2017, acrylic on canvas over panel, 60 x 62 inches 12

Arupa – Black, Blue, Canvas, 2018 acrylic on canvas over panel, 72 x 89 inches 14

Arupa – Gray, Red, Canvas, 2017 acrylic on canvas over panel, 38 x 38 inches 16

Arupa – Yellow, Gray, Canvas, 2018 acrylic on canvas over panel, 38 x 38 inches 18

Transition – Linen, Black, Gray, white, 2019 acrylic and matte medium on linen over panel, 60 x 60 inches 20

Haikube VI – White on White, 2019 acrylic on linen over panel, 10 x 18 inches 22

Haikube II – Black, Linen, 2019 acrylic on linen over panel, 10 x 18 inches 24

Haikube IV – White, Linen, 2019 acrylic on linen over panel, 10 x 18 inches 26

Matisse’s Window – White, Linen, Black, Blue, 2020, acrylic on linen over panel, 42 x 81 inches 28

Haikube – White, Black, Linen, 2020, signed, acrylic on linen over panel, 22 x 44 inches 30

Haikube Red – Red, Black, Gray, Linen, 2020, acrylic on linen over panel, 30 x 60 inches 32

Haikube – Linen, White, Black, 2020, acrylic on linen over panel, 22 x 44 inches 34

SCOT HEYWOOD: CHRONOLOGY Born 1951, Los Angeles, CA; Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2023 2019 2017 2015 2014 2013 2012 2010 2009 2008 2005 2003 2000 1998 1995 1994 1992 1990 1989 1987 1986

Modernism Inc., San Francisco, CA Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Santa Monica College, Pete and Susan Barrett Art Gallery, CA (catalogue) Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (catalogue) Polarities, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Hunsaker/Schlesinger Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA Chac Mool Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Chac Mool Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Chac Mool Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Ace Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA Ace Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA Ace Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA Kiyo Higashi Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Newspace, Los Angeles, CA Newspace, Los Angeles, CA Newspace, Los Angeles, CA

GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2021 LA Abstraction 1980-2000, Modernism Inc., San Francisco, CA 2020 Group Exhibition, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2019 Color, Shape & Texture, Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, Telluride, CO Laguna Art Museum Auction, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA The Edge of Light: Historic and Contemporary Perspectives on Californian Abstraction, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, CA 2018 Non-Objective, Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, Telluride, CO Modernism Show, Peter Blake Gallery, Palm Springs, CA 2017 Cool, Calm, Collected, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2016 Selected Works by Gallery Artists, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2015 Summer Group Show, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA James Hayward | Scot Heywood | John M. Miller, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2014 Joe Goode | Scot Heywood | John M. Miller, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Summer Formal, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2013 20th Anniversary Group Show, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Polyform: Larry Bell, Scot Heywood, Gustavo Pérez, and Mark Pharis, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

2012

2011

2009 2008

2007 2006 2006 2000

1999 1998 1997 1996 1994 1992 1991 1989 1988 1985 1984 1983 1982 1980 1979

Spring Group Show, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA California Abstract Painting 1952-2011 (Curated by James Hayward), Woodbury University Nan Rae Gallery, Burbank, CA Transcending Abstraction III, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Less is More, Subliminal Projects Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Marks and Movement: Five Painters, Edith Baumann, James Hayward, Scot Heywood, John M. Miller & Ed Moses, Santa Monica College Pete and Susan Barrett Art Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Three Abstract Painters: John McLaughlin, James Hayward, Scot Heywood, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Lita Albuquerque | Scot Heywood | Andy Moses, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Planes and Surfaces: James Hayward, Larry Bell, Scot Heywood, Wouter Dam, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Fifteen Years/ Fifteen Artists, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Color Blind: Black, White and Grey in Contemporary Art, Cardwell Jimmerson Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA Tony DeLap | Scot Heywood, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Black and White, Frank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA Monochrome Painting: Some Versions from Ad Reinhardt to Present, Cardwell Jimmerson Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA To Present, Cardwell Jimmerson Gallery, Los Angeles, CA West Coast Abstraction, Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA A Little So Cal Abstraction, Mandarin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA That’s Hot, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM Spring Fever, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM Luminous, Ikon, Ltd. / Kay Richards Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA Simply Complex: Monochromatic Paintings from L.A. (Curated by Reuben M. Baron and Joan Boykoff Baron), Dorsky Gallery, New York, NY Patricia Sweetow Gallery, San Francisco, CA Under 500/Intimate Abstract Painting, Black Dragon Society, Los Angeles, CA Starting with McLaughlin, Patricia Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Abstraction in Los Angeles, New Image Art, Los Angeles, CA Red Painting, Newspace, Los Angeles, CA Plane/Structures (Curated by David Pagel), Otis Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA In Plane Sight: Abstract Painting in Los Angeles (Curated by Frances Colpitt), Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, TX New L.A. Abstraction, Art Gallery, College of the Mainlands, Texas City, TX Group Show, Burnett Miller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Group Show, Kiyo Higashi Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Art and Soul, Pence Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles Current Abstract Painting, Marc Richards Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Primary Abstraction: Los Angeles, Modernism Inc., San Francisco, CA Black and White Drawings from the David Nellis Collection, California State University, Los Angeles, CA Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, Newspace, Los Angeles, CA Divisions: Seven Los Angeles Painters, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA New Clear Painting, Newspace, Los Angeles, CA New Abstract Painters from Los Angeles, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA In the Tradition, Group Studio Show, Los Angeles, CA Abstract Painting, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, Vanguard Gallery, Los Angeles, CA