Koji Takei 2016

KOJI TAKEI

IDIOSYNCRASY

IDIOSYNCRASY

Creating sculptures of exquisite peculiarity is an art in which Takei excels. His elegantly crafted works embody the notion of the whimsical, contradictory and idiosyncratic. There is an immediately detectable sense of humor and quick wit about the sculptures in this exhibition. Beyond playfulness, however, Takei’s aim is to challenge the viewer to alter the way in which they look at reality.

Taking cues from the Surrealists of the early 20th century, Takei transforms the mundane into the fantastic - and sometimes absurd. His work is a constant inquiry into the meaning of functionality and the perception of purpose. Much like Man Ray’s iconic readymade sculpture, The Gift (1921), and Meret Oppenheim’s infamous fur-covered teacup (Object, 1936), Takei recontextualizes those pragmatic objects that we immediately recognize. With his piece Soft Shoulders (2011), Takei deconstructs a wooden clothes hanger into small pieces that are linked together like a necklace. He has obliterated its essential utility and in the process has created an entirely new object with new meaning and ultimately a new purpose.

In Takei’s hands, seemingly utilitarian objects are rendered useless, but are arguably made more beautiful - transformed from the quotidian to the extraordinary. For instance, inspired by watching the dramatic motions of a violinist playing in concert, Takei has taken a vine and twisted it into a delicate spiral, adding the frog, end cap and horsehair from a traditional bow to create A Thousand Strokes, (2015).

The title itself is a double entendre - at once referring to the motion of playing an instrument and also to a cheeky Japanese slang. By altering the forms of Santathese Monica, CAobjects, - The William Turner Gallery pleased to announce our upcoming solo exhibition, familiar Takei imbues them with is new meaning. :Using clever, titles, Takei Jimi Gleason Surface andtongue-in-cheek Light. Jimi Gleason’s paintings are enigmatic. They emphasize seductive in many instances personifies them, projecting our surfaces, which reveal no trace of traditional paint application. These mysterious surfaces are own attributes onto those ordinary, inanimate things highlythat reactive toevery light,day. position and viewer - acting as catalysts for shifting perceptions. They are we utilize

immediately understandable as paintings, though it’s difficult to imagine how they were created.

Through the use non-traditional materials and luminescent silver deposit, Gleason creates works Koji Takei wasofborn in Japan and currently lives and works inan Los Angeles.reflection He received from of how we perceive and experience the world that inspire intimate on his theBFA essence CalArts around us. and has taught at Otis College of Art and

Design, California Institute of the Arts and currently, Art Center College of Design. His works have been Gleason’s most recent body of work isincluding consistent exhibited in a number of museums the with the iridescent paintings he has developed over Laguna the lastArt decade, a radicalAmerican departure in execution. Using a silver-deposit surface Museumbut andmarks the Japanese Museum Los Angeles. his and glassy - sheets of solid vapor that respond coat,National Gleason createsin paintings thatThis are marks ethereal sixth solo exhibition at William Turner Gallery. and react to the play of light and their environment. These newest paintings are saturated with

brilliant colors - bright coppers, rich ceruleans and glowing golds - adding more depth to the already lustrous surfaces, which seem to emanate light from within.

Uniting hard-edge geometric forms with his sensuously luminous surfaces, Gleason boldly breaks up the picture plane into alternating fields of texture. The effect is a hypnotic and prismatic visual structure, where light, color and form intersect in ever-changing play. These dynamic surfaces engage the viewerAmerican and urgecomposer them to explore the infinite experiential possibilities of comes art.

The avant-garde (and contemporary of Miro) John Cage, also to mind when viewing Ripley’s rhapsodic paintings. Cage pioneered interdeterminacy - a movement in Born Beach,ofCA, Gleason received BAtofrom UC To Berkeley in ‘mistake’ 1985. Heisstudied musicininNewport which aspects a musical work are left his open chance.

Cage, “a beside printmaking atonce the San Francisco Art Institute before is,” relocating Newphilosophy York City, where the point, for anything happens it authentically and thistosame couldhe beworked argued as photo assistant andrelinquishes photo technician.

Returning to California, Gleason was in and the foraRipley’s work. Ripley the need for absolute control, embracing theemployed unforeseen studio of Ed Moses forafraid five years.

Combining the disparate compositional unexpected.

He is not to wipe out and begin again, histechnical paintingsand show the marks of skills their developed his smudges exposure and to printmaking, photography mixed-media painting, Gleason of is creation - during splatters, drips are allowed to live and on the surface, serving as markers now the subject considerable curatorial and criticalchronicle applause.

His work is exhibited significant the artist’s path.of Ripley’s artistic pursuit is to visually those fleeting momentsinthat add up public institutions, including the Armand Museum, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the to a lifetime, inviting the viewer to join inHammer on the journey.

Soft Shoulders, Seattle Art Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art and the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation.

The 2011, wood & metal, artist’s paintings actively collected by solo a growing number ofWilliam major public private collections This show marksare Curtis Ripley’s seventh exhibition with Turnerand Gallery.

Curtis Ripley 24” x 8” x 1.5” around theinworld. was born Lubbock, Texas in 1949. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Midnight Oil, 2015, fur, metal, wood & stain, 84� length

Precipice, 2015, wood & stain, 8” x 15” x 11”

Casual Attire, 2015, paper, metal & wood on metal stand, 32” x 12” x 10”

Folding Chair, 2015, mixed media, 26” x 22” x 28”

Holiday Excercise, 2015, wood & metal. 40” x 7” x 2.5”

Irreconciliation, 2004/2015, wood, stone & feathers, 20” x 17” x 1”

Teeter Piper, 2012, wood, metal & enamel on metal base, 7” x 9” x 3”

OD -6.50 OS -6.50, 2014, eyeglasses & epoxy resin, 14” x 11” x 2”

Goodbye In Spanish, 2016, oil on canvas, 60” x 48”

One Way, 2015, sinew, wood & feather, 5” x 23” x 2”

A Thousand Strokes, 2015, wood, metal, horsehair & stain, 16” x 22” x 1”

Windsor I, 2015, wood, metal, enamel on metal stand, 48” x 21” x 8”

Study for Windsor, 2014, wood, metal & enamel, 23” x 31” x 2”

Yonder Hills, 2015, wood, glass, leather, metal & stain, 41” x 11” x 2”