RUTH PASTINE
Ruth Pastine’s work is focused on the phenomenological investigation of color and its optical invocation of temperature, light, and spatial interplay. Her painting process explores the perceptual interaction of saturated and nuanced color relationships that explore the dialogue between object, presence, and phenomena. By utilizing a limited palette of specific complementary color systems Pastine is able to investigate infinite color By experiences that transcend personal aesthetics. Working in oil on canvas, the countless small brushstrokes appear visually seamless. By carefully working these color systems through multiple layers she is able to push each painting beyond their own material substance and into a de-contextualized realm that speaks to the dialogue of materiality and immateriality, presence and absence, matter and light, surface and depth. Although the appearance of her brushwork remains indiscernible, the eye detects the presence of her hand in each work, informing the nuanced shifting of color remains and light, engaging the viewer in the present tense of discovery. Ruth Pastine was born and raised in New York City. She received her B.F.A. from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, NY in painting and art history, and her M.F.A. from Hunter College of the City University of New York in painting, color theory, and critical theory. She received the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Grant in 1999, and in 2000 in conjunction with The Shifting Foundation matching grant. In 2001 she relocated to Southern California where she currently works and resides. She has exhibited widely in the United States and Japan, and is included in many public and corporate collections, including: Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA;; AXA Art, Cologne, Germany;; Brookfield Properties, Ernst & Young Plaza, Los Angeles, Museums CA;; Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, CA;; Goodwill Industries International, San Francisco, CA;; Lakeshore Entertainment, Los Angeles, CA;; Lehman Brothers/Townsend Analytics, New York, NY;; Qualcomm, San Diego, CA;; and UNICEF, New York, NY.
Ruth Pastine Blue Violet 1-S4848 Sense Certainty Series 2014 Oil on canvas on beveled stretcher bars 48 x 48 inches
Ruth Pastine Red Green 2-S4848 (Red Light) Present Tense Series 2015 Oil on canvas on beveled stretcher bars 48 x 48 inches
Ruth Pastine Blue Orange 2-S4848 (Orange Deep) Present Tense Series 2015 Oil on canvas on beveled stretcher bars 48 x 48 inches (122 x 122 cm)
Ruth Pastine Equivalence Blue Orange 1 (Blue Deep) 2015 Oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches
VICTOR MATTHEWS
Victor Matthews is an internationally exhibited artist who lives both in Los Angeles and New York, is a New York native with roots in Brooklyn where he was born in 1963. He is a graduate of the New York High School of Art and Design and earned his BFA from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After completing his studies, Matthews moved back to New York in 1984 to set up his first studio in the East Village. As As a young artist Matthews began his career in New York alongside artists like Richard Hambleton, and Keith Haring who taught Matthews how to stretch canvas. The influence of the first real “street art” movement on his work is palpable. Although he has been known to use the street as a canvas, he is in every aspect a studio painter, and has instead brought the street into his canvases. For For the last decade Matthews has been creating perfectly choreographed mosaic-like paintings of whitewashed and abstracted cityscapes. His canvases, visually complex, are teeming with objects and abstracted shapes formed out of a bright white and heavy impasto paint. Each form sits on a raw canvas background, elbow to elbow with others without overlapping. While painting in his New York studio, banal urban objects such as sneakers, hydrants and brick find their way into his Zen-like paintings. Abstracted brick walkways are topped with sneakers in profile, water towers stand like mountains and stylized pigeons sit comfortably atop the Brooklyn Bridge. While While working in his Los Angeles studio, (where he affectionately calls “the West Side of America.”) the intricacies of the urban streets are replaced with new kinds of modernist foliage and organic shapes that hint at a story rather than tell it outright, reflecting a more sprawling urban environment. In contrast, his “west side” paintings occasionally contain color, or what he refers to as “tones” or “moods”. Rich blue, oranges, and serve as warm backgrounds for the bright-white objects to float upon. All of his work exudes both calm richness and a bright, hopeful optimism. Matthews Matthews has been exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions in the US and abroad including the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, Museum Sala Uno (Rome), the Boca Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum (Venice) and The Sculpture Center (New York). In 2013, Matthews exhibited in the 55th Venice Biennale, friends and collectors Salman Rushdie and Francesco Clemente composed the introduction for the published catalog. His His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum Overholland (Amsterdam), the International Center for Contemporary Art (Rome), Cornell University (Ithaca NY), Museum Ludwig (Cologne), New School (New York), and Museum Nuova Icona (Venice), as well as in the private collections of Russell Simmons, Brice & Helen Marden, Jay Z, L.A. Reid, Francesco & Alba Clemente, Vera List, Ed Norton, Mary J. Blige, Nathaniel Rothschild, Forest Whitaker, President Mogae of Botswana, Donald Trump, Ronald Perelman and Salman Rushdie, among others.
Victor Matthews Untitled 2014 bbb-E 2014 Acrylic and oil wax pencil on canvas 78 x 32 inches
Victor Matthews Untitled 2014 bbb-F 2014 Acrylic and oil wax pencil on canvas 42 x 62 inches
Victor Matthews Untitled 2014 bbb-J 2014 Acrylic and oil wax pencil on canvas 47 x 83 inches
Victor Matthews Untitled 2014 bbb-L 2014 Acrylic and oil wax pencil on canvas 72 x 30 inches
Victor Matthews Frozen City III 2013 Wood, canvas, sneaker, paint, and cardboard 42 x 33 x 13 inches
Victor Matthews Frozen City IV 2013 Wood, canvas, sneaker, paint, and cardboard 42 x 33 x 13 inches
Victor Matthews Frozen City V 2013 Wood, canvas, sneaker, paint, and cardboard 42 x 33 x 13 inches
GARY LANG
Gary Lang (b. 1950) is recognized as one of the most distinguished artists in Western Contemporary Art, and no account of recent art history would be complete without mention of his iconic concentric circle paintings. To connect his work contextually to that of modern colorists such as Josef Albers and Frank Stella seems only logical;; however, Lang’s methodology can be better understood when compared to that of a classical painter. His physical act of painting requires intense focus on the interaction between brush, hand, paint and canvas. This level of concentration compels Lang to be “hyper-present” with his works—an element that translates from artist to viewer. The artistic evolution of Gary Lang, from 1975 to today, has been an “hyper-present” investigation into the dynamics of visual consciousness articulated through his demanding paintings. Born and raised near the Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles, Gary Lang developed his artistic voice during what can best be described as a “transitional” era of west-coast artistic culture. His work in the 1970s and 1980s played a role in an optimistic moment in California postmodern culture that challenged New York’s dominance. In 1970 he was accepted into the B.A. program at Cal Arts where he studied in the company of Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, and David Salle. Together these vanguards were able to debunk old stereotypes that California lacked cultural innovators and set the stage for Cal Arts to become one of the most venerated artistic institutions in the world. Following Following his B.A. program, Lang opted to attend Yale University in 1973, where he completed his M.F.A. in 1975. During his time at Yale, faculty and fellow students relied on the theories that Josef Albers introduced there during the 1950s. Lang disregarded those teachings drawing inspiration from artists as varied as Paul Klee, Edouard Vuillard, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd, Barry Le Va, and Wassily Kandinsky. In In 1975 Lang moved to Barcelona on a Fulbright Scholarship, where he spent nearly two years studying the vibrant architecture of Antoio Gaudi. Upon returning to Los Angeles Lang lived in an industrial warehouse loft space near downtown, and for the next decade he allowed the various moods and dialects of the urban L.A. environment resonate within his work. In In 1985, the artist sensed that the evolution of his work required him to move to New York, where he continued to live and work for the next 16 years. In a transitional moment in 1987 Lang rekindled a thread he began in the late 70's completing his first shaped concentric circle painting, laying the groundwork for what can only be called an unending love affair with this painting methodology. These circles, or “tondos” are undeniably his most iconic style and have consumed him since. His His distinguished career boasts significant museum and solo exhibitions worldwide, including but not limited to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York;; the McNay Museum, San Antonio;; The Haags Gementemuseum, The Hauge, Netherlands;; the Institute of American Studies, Barcelona, Spain;; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven;; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego;; the Liu Haisu Art Museum, Shanghai, China;; the Museum Ludwig, Koln, Germany;; Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn;; and the United Nations Plaza, New York. His paintings can be found in significant private and public collections internationally and has been critically reviewed in numerous publications, including the New York be Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Reader, Art Week, KCRW Art Talk, Art & Auction, The Wall Street Journal, ARTFORUM, ArtNews, and Art in America. Gary Lang now lives and works in Southern California.
Gary Lang BLUELIGHTTHREEE 2015 Acrylic on canvas 72 inches diameter
Gary Lang BLUELIGHTFIVE 2015 Acrylic on canvas 72 inches diameter
Gary Lang BLUELIGHTSIX 2015 Acrylic on canvas 54 inches diameter
Gary Lang BLUELIGHTSEVEN 2015 Acrylic on canvas 60 inches diameter
Gary Lang LINESGREEN 2015 Acrylic on panel 39 x 22 1/2 inches
Gary Lang LINESHAITIANIGHT 2015 Acrylic on panel 39 x 22 1/2 inches
Gary Lang LINESHAITIANYELLOW 2015 Acrylic on panel 39 x 22 1/2 inches
Gary Lang METALINESONE 2015 Acrylic on panel 60 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches
Gary Lang METALINESTWO 2015 Acrylic on panel 39 x 22 1/2 inches
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