CHARLES ARNOLDI O U T L I E R
CHARLES ARNOLDI OUTLIER January 17— February 24, 2024
Opening Reception Saturday, January 20 th 4 — 6 pm
501 Pacific Avenue
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San Francisco
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415 788 5588
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srcart.com
A versatile, ever evolving artist, known for working with non-traditional materials, Charles Arnoldi carved his own distinctive presence in the realm of contemporary abstraction by successfully blurring the lines between painting and sculpture while maintaining a constantly expanding vocabulary of artistic expression. His continually intuitive and physical approach to making art is evident in OUTLIER, the recent body of work at Scott Richards Contemporary Art. The artist’s gusto for deconstructing and redefining the pictorial plane is best expressed by two larger-than-life wall reliefs titled Missionary and Urban Planning, that stand at the forefront of the exhibition. Painted on deeply jagged surfaces with brightly colored, thick acrylic paint, these compositions reference the artist’s earlier iconic “chainsaw paintings” but instead of wood, they are carved from light polyethene foam. The other works on display, however, signal a clear departure from his previous explorations and demonstrate a new, free-form approach to both sculpture and painting. In stark contrast to the monumental wall installations, OUTLIER includes a few recent wood sculptures of modest proportions that bear the mark of the ax and the line of the saw. Beautiful in their simplicity, these wood pieces serve as building blocks to the artist’s recent explorations, while their rough-hewn forms are mirrored by several acrylic paintings on canvas such as Passion, Shoot Out and Channeler. Depicting an engaging play on visual perspective, the paintings clearly reflect a deeply rooted sculptural practice, surprising the viewer with juxtaposing, irregular shapes, bold colors, and energetic patterns that cleverly seem to pop in and out of perspective.
For close to 50 years, Charles Arnoldi has devoted a deep commitment to experimentation, and a tireless focus on studio production. Arriving in Southern California in the mid 1960’s, from Dayton, Ohio, he began an ever-evolving career by studying at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and winning LACMA’s New or Young Talent Award in 1969. In the highly experimental Los Angeles art scene of the late 1960s and 1970s, Arnoldi established an aesthetic separate from his peers. His seminal “stick paintings” where, instead of painting on canvas, he utilized actual tree branches as a vehicle to draw lines through space, were the first works to win him international accolades. In 1972, he was invited to participate in Harald Szeemann’s seminal Documenta V in Kassel, Germany, and later went on to receive two NEA Artist Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Maestro Grant from the California Arts Council. His works can be found in the collections of many major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. Charles Arnoldi lives and works in Venice, California.
SHOOT OUT 2022, acrylic on canvas 78 × 60 inches
UNTITLED (23.123) 2023, chainsawed and assembled wood and oxidized paint, 20 × 17.5 × 6 inches
“This is an artist whose best is yet to come, who is still experimental and still willing to risk.” — Frank Gehry
MISSIONARY 2022, chainsawed foam with plaster and acrylic 84 × 71 inches
URBAN PLANNING 2023, chainsawed foam with plaster and acrylic 84 × 71 × 5 inches
BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO 2023, acrylic on canvas 51 × 90 inches
BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO 2023, acrylic on canvas 51 × 90 inches
PASSION 2020, acrylic on canvas 74 × 66 inches
UNTITLED (23.192) 2023, chainsawed and assembled wood 23.5 × 9 × 15 inches
CHANNELER 2021, acrylic on canvas 55 × 46 inches
“In abstract painting, the artist sets up a problem and then solves it.” — Charles Arnoldi
UNTITLED (21.228) 2021, oil on linen 24 × 20 inches
STRING THEORY 1 2021, acrylic on canvas 16 × 12 inches each
STRING THEORY 2 2021, acrylic on canvas 16 × 12 inches each
UNTITLED (23.135) 2023, chainsawed and assembled wood, oxidized paint 14.5 × 12 × 6 inches
ADDITIONAL WORKS
UNTITLED 2000, gouache on collaged paper 20 × 28 inches
COLD TRACK 1989, acrylic on canvas 50 × 42 inches
THRONE 2010, acrylic on assembled canvases 63 × 28 inches
UNTITLED (15.104) 2015, gouache on paper 14 × 10.25 inches
EXHIBITION IMAGES
“I’ve found that by making art constantly, one idea leads into another and another, creating infinite possibilities. There’s a thread that runs through everything. I can’t escape myself, even though I try to reinvent myself all the time. There’s a comfort and feeling in a certain kind of a composition or the way I approach something.” — Charles Arnoldi
CHARLES ARNOLDI PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA
Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Bilbao, Spain
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Memphis Brooks Museum, Memphis, TN
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY Menil Foundation, Houston Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY National Gallery of Art, Sydney, Australia Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
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501 Pacific Avenue
.
San Francisco
.
415 788 5588
.
srcart.com