True Colors: An Exhibit of Color Abstraction

FEATURED ARTISTS JOSHUA ELIAS SAMMY PETERS MARK POMILIO CONNIE CONNALLY

1613 Paseo de Peralta I Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 I 505.988.3250 I lewallengalleries.com I contact@lewallengalleries.com Cover: Joshua Elias, Candy, n.d., oil on canvas, 54 x 45 inches 1

TRUE COLORS

AN EXHIBIT OF COLOR ABSTRACTION Color has been said to be the embodiment of beauty and as the father of abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, has written, "Color is a power which directly influences the soul." It is in honor of this wonderful power of color that LewAllen Galleries is pleased to present True Colors, an exhibition of Color Abstraction, including the works of Connie Connally, Joshua Elias, Sammy Peters, and Mark Pomilio. The exhibition opens January 26 and will be on view through March 2, 2024. Featuring a variety of rich, multi-layered surfaces of color, the works included in this exhibition offer variations of energetic rhythms, forms and shapes, and gestural lines that draw attention to the expressive qualities of each artist’s work.

Included within the exhibition is a showcase highlighting abstract expressionist paintings

by Los Angeles artist, Joshua Elias, whose work is new to the gallery. He creates colorful narrative works that use polarities of color, harmonic forms, and disappearing lines that provide frameworks for his compositions.

Also included in True Colors are Sammy Peters’ paintings, which represent an unfettered convergence of color, shape, pattern, and texture, assembled in what appears as both creative improvisation and, at the same time, thoughtful construction. His canvases attract the eye with unexpected and engaging compositions of color blocks, variegated shadings, and an endless variety of elaborate shapes.

Connie Connally paints canvases of complex elegance, with imagery that merges both representational landscape reference and powerful evocative abstraction. Her poetic colorscapes, with their expressive brushwork, sweeping gestural marks, and animated cadence, reflect her passion for distilling the essence of her observations of nature.

Mark Pomilio’s art references the forces and geometries of the natural world, through delicate color and a layered, expressive use of line. Mirroring the dynamic, interlocking systems that underlie the physical environment, Pomilio’s paintings are each self-contained universes of softly layered forms and fluid calligraphic lines.

JOSHUA ELIAS

Joshua Elias is a maker of heroic, colorful, narrative works. His focus on creating form, through color and utilizing polarities of color, help distinguish his art. The artist accentuates harmonic forms housed by disappearing lines, providing an armature serving as the composition. Thematically, his interests lay in the interstitial, the tone of the atmosphere, and the mythology of story.

Joshua grew up in Wilmette, Illinois, a North Shore suburb of Chicago, in an artistic family. His works can be found in public and private collections, including the Beverly Hills boutique hotel, Maison 140, and the Viceroy in Santa Monica. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout Los Angeles and in Europe. Elias’s painting, The Skin of the Sea, was purchased by Icelandic President Gudni Th. Johannesson and hangs in the State House of Iceland outside of Reykjavik.

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Joshua Elias When Left Unattended, 2021 Oil on linen, 48 x 22 inches

Joshua Elias Candy, n.d.

Oil on canvas, 54 x 45 inches

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Joshua Elias Suspension, 2023 Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

Joshua Elias Elpis (Hope), 2020 Oil on linen, 57 x 54 inches

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Joshua Elias Elpis II (Hope), 2020 Oil on linen, 57 x 54 inches

Joshua Elias Ghost of Spumoni, 2021 Oil on linen, 63 x 54 inches

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Joshua Elias Minding No Mind, n.d.

Oil on linen, 54 x 45 inches

Joshua Elias She Brakes for Rainbows, 2023 Oil on canvas, 30 x 60 inches

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Joshua Elias Is Anything Delicate Anymore?, n.d.

Oil on canvas, 57 x 54 inches

Joshua Elias Searching for Peggy Guggenheim (Life Map Series), 2023 Oil on linen, 75 x 65 inches 14

Joshua Elias Sortie, 2021 Oil on linen, 63 x 54 inches

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Joshua Elias There is Goodness There, 2021 Oil on linen, 30 x 40 inches

Joshua Elias Reconvening of the Gentle (Life Map Series), n.d.

Oil on linen, 75 x 65 inches

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Joshua Elias Risen (Life Map Series), 2023 Oil on linen, 75 x 65 inches

Joshua Elias Nascent (Life Map Series), 2020 Oil on linen, 73 x 65 inches

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Joshua Elias Everything Not Explained, n.d.

Oil on linen, 63 x 54 inches

SAM MY P ETE RS

Sammy Peters creates pensive yet rollicking canvases, expressing a fascinating vision of life’s complex and opposing rhythms. His works attract the eye with their unsettling, but convincing composition of muted color blocks, and twisting or looping white or black lines. Looking closer, the viewer is transfixed by the sensuous surfaces—a complex interplay of expressive brushwork, scribbles and drips, and collaged papers and fabrics, all layered in a way that suggests an intricate, intelligent game of mysterious activity.

Peters’ work has been exhibited in major art centers as far-flung as New York, Atlanta, Boca Raton, Santa Fe, Houston, and Los Angeles, and is represented in private and public collections from Little Rock to London. He received the Individual Artist Award at the 2023 Arkansas Governor’s Arts Awards.

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Sammy Peters Preserved: transforming; existence, 2020 Oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

Sammy Peters Inevitable: collected; destiny, 2019 Oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

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Sammy Peters Current: arbitrary; tradition, 2019 Oil and mixed media on canvas, 59 x 63 inches

Sammy Peters Fragment: encountered; rhythm, 2021 Oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

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Sammy Peters Uncertainty: signaled: acceptance, 2020 oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

Sammy Peters Reform: ambiguous; uncertainty, 2020 Oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

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Sammy Peters Remote: fictional; victory, 2020 Oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

MARK POMILIO

Mark Pomilio conveys ideas through subtle colors and an abstract, expressive use of line and geometric forms, reflecting the building blocks and energetic properties of the natural world. His meditative, cerebral drawings in charcoal and paintings on canvas possess a masterful capacity to suggest the aesthetic and symbolic potential of rhythm.

Pomilio received his Master’s Degree in Painting from the University of Michigan in 1995. He is Professor of Painting and Drawing at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. His art has been exhibited in museums nationally and internationally, including Luxehill Museum in Chengdu, China; Xu Beihong Art Academy, Renmin University of China in Beijing; the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salapetriere in Paris, France; and Art Resources Transfer in New York City.

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Mark Pomilio Symbols and Symmetries II, 2018 Charcoal and oil on linen, 40 x 30 inches

Mark Pomilio Oceans, Bays, Waves and Dreams, 2018-22 Oil and charcoal on linen, 67.75 x 58 inches

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Mark Pomilio Elements II, 2018-19 Charcoal and oil on linen, 40 x 30 inches

Mark Pomilio Nocturne, 2013-21 Oil on canvas, 36 x 41 inches

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Mark Pomilio Coral Passages (diptych), 2018-22 Oil on linen, 40.25 x 53 inches

C O N N I E C O N N A L LY

Connie Connally paints beautiful canvases of complex elegance, with imagery merging harmoniously with both representational reference and powerful abstraction. Her poetic colorscapes feature expressive brushwork, sweeping gestural marks, and animated cadence. Connally’s palette of organic color and calligraphic brushstroke combine to serve as imprint of the artist’s profound love of being in nature.

Connally continues to find bountiful inspiration in the natural coastlines and verdure of California and the Santa Barbara Mountains that surround her home. She was educated at Oklahoma University and Wichita State University, later earning her MFA at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Her work has been exhibited extensively across the United States and is included in public and private collections.

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Connie Connally Moon Chaser II, 2015 Oil on canvas, 96 x 72 inches

Connie Connally Comes Life Again, 2020 Oil on canvas, 30 x 44 inches

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Connie Connally Sunset Shallows, 2023 Oil on canvas, 44 x 60 inches

Connie Connally Autumn Waters, 2023 Oil on canvas, 50 x 52 inches

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Connie Connally Small Stream Eddy, 2023 Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

Connie Connally Blue Bosque and Understory II, 2020 Oil on canvas, 44 x 30 inches

Connie Connally Passing Through, 2020 Oil on canvas, 44 x 30 inches 42

Connie Connally Water Blue as Air, 2016 Oil on canvas, 34 x 34 inches

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Connie Connally Liquid Lavender IV, 2011 Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches

Connie Connally Blue on Blue, 2014 Oil on canvas, 50 x 52 inches

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Connie Connally Summer's Edge, 2014 Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

Connie Connally Forever Autumn, 2014 Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches

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Connie Connally Small Spring Sea Rising, 2016 Gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches

Connie Connally Spring Swell, 2016 Gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches

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Connie Connally Sunset Sea, 2016 Gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches

Connie Connally Wild Approach II, 2017 Oil on canvas, 10 x 36 inches

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Connie Connally Citron Graphite, 2010 Oil on canvas, 66 x 44 inches

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Connie Connally Graphite Moon Wave, 2010 Oil on canvas, 60 x 44 inches

Connie Connally Impetuous, 2011 Oil on canvas, 32 x 22 inches

Connie Connally Souls Alike, 2011 Oil on canvas, 32 x 22 inches 56

Connie Connally Lemon Lorraine I, 2007 Oil on canvas, 32 x 40 inches

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Connie Connally Summer Tide, 2007-10 Oil & graphite on canvas, 32 x 40 inches

Connie Connally Sundial, 2016 Oil on canvas, 34 x 34 inches

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Connie Connally Small Sundial, 2016 Gouache on paper, 10 x 10 inches

Connie Connally Liquid Lace, 2011 Oil on canvas, 34 x 72 inches

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1613 Paseo de Peralta I Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 I 505.988.3250 I lewallengalleries.com I contact@lewallengalleries.com © 2024 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC | Artwork © Each Artist back cover: Mark Pomilio, Prodigal Son,63 2018-22, Oil on canvas, 59.75 x 48 inches