CAROLE BAYER SAGER NEW WORKS
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY BERGAMOT STATION ARTS CENTER 2525 MICHIGAN AVE., E-1 SANTA MONICA, CA 90404 P 310-453-0909 F 310-453-0908 www.williamturnergallery.com
FOREWORD: Santa Monica, CA – William Turner Gallery is pleased to announce New Works: Paintings by Carole Bayer Sager, the gallery’s second exhibition for the artist. The show continues to investigate subjects Bayer Sager introduced in 2012, at her sold-out debut exhibition. This exhibition, which opens September 18, explores notions of obsession and perception, utilizing foods that are embedded in our pop cultural DNA. By drastically changing their size and scale, the artist invites viewers to take an abstract look - up close or at a distance - bringing their own associations to grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate candies, and confectionary explosions. The richly detailed compositions are sensual provocations, enticing desire and temptation, through the wonderfully seductive qualities of paint. “Carole Bayer Sager doesn’t paint food, she paints how we look at and see food,” writes art critic Peter Frank. “[She] is, if anything, more invested in the sensuality of the paint than in the sensuality of the subject matter. The paint itself is rich, thick, tactile, the surfaces often glazed. If the goodies she depicts inspire nostalgia for gustatory indulgence, the rich feel of the paint awakens a deeper, more directly and intensely felt sensation.” Bayer Sager explains, “I continue to paint subjects, mostly foods, and candies, that blur the lines between abstraction and photorealism. To me, my most successful paintings are the ones that close up, appear to be about paint and texture, and as you back up from them, a photographic image abstracted, comes into focus.” As a fine artist, “Carole has firmly established her voice in the language of paint,” says William Turner. “She draws upon the universal aspects of our culture, and her love of the visual world is very clear. These macro and micro views of seemingly everyday subjects are rich with memory and associations. Her talent for visual expression is exceptional in its depth and facility.” Bayer Sager, one of the world’s most iconic Grammy-winning pop songwriters, began painting in 2006. At first she sketched and painted watercolors of famous friends. This visual mode of expression soon became a full-time passion. Portraits and abstracts by Bayer Sager are in the collections of Steven and Ann Martin, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Elton John, and David Geffen. Says friend and painter Eric Fischl, “Having taught painting, I know how rare it is for someone just beginning to be able to control the luminosity of flesh. Carole is one of those rare exceptions: a natural talent.”
MILKY WAY, oil on canvas, 84”x84”
SHREDDED, oil on canvas, 84”x84”
GOLDEN KISSES, oil on canvas, 60”x60”
TOASTED, oil on canvas, 60”x60”
KISSES & SHADOW, oil on canvas, 48”x48”
PULLED, oil on canvas, 48”x48”
TORN, oil on canvas, 48”x48”
SILVER KISSES, oil on canvas, 48”x48”
SAMPLED, oil on canvas, 48”x48”
PORTRAIT OF TWO KISSES WITH REFLECTION, oil on canvas, 36”x36”
PORTRAIT OF AN ORANGE M&M PEANUT, oil on canvas, 36”x36”
PORTRAIT OF AN M&M PEANUT, oil on canvas, 36”x36”
Carole Bayer Sager: On her Music and Painting
To me, songwriting and painting are very related. I have always preferred writing ballads rather than up-tempo songs because ballads are more emotional. They elicit big feelings. In writing and producing songs, there is always that moment when the song needs to grab me or else it fails. When the string line enters for the first time, I feel deliciously satisfied, very much like the moment a painting begins to satisfy me as it becomes thick with paint and rich with color. When I can feel the drip of the jelly, the sensuality of the overly buttered corn, or the texture of the red skins of peanuts, I am “there”. And I am “there” in that same sensually satisfying way as hearing the chorus of “Nobody Does it Better”, all the instruments in the right relationship to each other, the string line riding the air, the smoothness and sensuality of Carly Simon’s voice, thick and rich, perfectly cushioned in the track. My whole being feels complete when it is right. Whether in songwriting or in painting, if I don’t get that feeling, I have not been successful. Although this can be a little depressing, I try to study why and then I move on.
IN THE COLLECTIONS OF: Shelli and Irving Azoff Eva and Michael Chow Sandy Gallin David Geffen Elton John Bobby Kotick Nigel Lythgoe Steve and Ann Martin Tamar and Bob Manoukian Mo Ostin Margie Perenchio Lynda and Stewart Resnick Jane and Terry Semel Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban Barbara Walters Elaine Wynn
SPECIAL THANKS: Bob Daly Christine Anderson Rob Brander Carolyn Campbell Michael Govan Tien Ly Margie Perenchio Savannah Sjostrom