JIMI GLEASON VAPOR WAVE
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY Copyright: William Turner Gallery 2025
JIMI GLEASON VAPOR WAVE
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
VAPOR WAVE Santa Monica, CA - William Turner Gallery is pleased to present Vapor Wave, a solo exhibition by Jimi Gleason, opening April 5 and running through May 31, 2025. Vapor Wave is Jimi Gleason’s most ambitious body of work to date. Utilizing a rich vocabulary of materials and styles, Gleason has built up gossamer thin layers of iridescent paint to create a series of paintings that are engagingly enigmatic. They confirm an artist at the height of his talent, confidently exploring the power of nuance and understated expression. In this new series, vaporous ribbons of color play across lustrous surfaces that morph and shift as one engages them. The effect elicits a sense of unexpected revelry - much like the kind one might experience gazing across a lake in a predawn moment, captivated by the growing light as it caresses and undulates across the water’s surface. And like water, Gleason’s surfaces are quietly in motion, their iridescent paints subtly shifting in hue as light plays across them. In some of the
canvases, sharp diagonals bifurcate the compositions, providing dramatic structural rifts to these ethereal surfaces. The effect is a hypnotic and prismatic visual structure, where light, color and form intersect in everchanging play. Gleason has a uniquely personal connection to water: he grew up surfing, and took up rowing in college. When he talks about his work he also talks about, “the way the light looks underwater,” and early mornings rowing when the calm water reflects the sky at dawn. Like many artists working in the Light and Space arena, materials and their catalytic visual effects are essential to their work. In Gleason’s case, he employs silver nitrate and pearlescent paints to activate his surfaces, which catch and reflect surrounding light, further engaging one’s sense of the surrounding space. Gleason is a leader in that next generation of Southern California artists to work in the Light and Space ethos, carrying the dialogue forward and using his work to explore the phenomenological properties of perception.
Over Water Like Glass, 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 88” x 76”
Pieces of Light, 2025, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 72” x 60”
Ghost Rider, 2024, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 88” x 76”
Big White Cloud (Cale), 2024, Silver nitrate & acrylic on canvas, 88” x 76”
Avalon, 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 80” x 56”
Strong Current, 2024, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 72” x 60”
Water Lilies, 2024, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 72” x 60”
Magnetic Force, 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 66” x 54”
Shadow Flyer, 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 66” x 54”
Shadow Flyer, 2024, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 66” x 54”
Bell’s Mirage, 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 66” x 54”
Bell’s Mirage, 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 66” x 54”
Inside Out 2025 Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 48” x 53”
Inside Out, 2025, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 48” x 53”
Gateway, 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 66” x 54”
Rain Lotus, 2024, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 60” x 48”
Feel Flows, 2025, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 53” x 48”
Liquid Light, 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 53” x 48”
Instrument (Fugazi), 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 53” x 48”
Plane Image (KinE), 2024, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 60”
Plane Image (KinE), 2024, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 60”
GP Kine, 2023, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 32” x 28”
Untitled, 2024, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 30” x 24”
Liquid Light ii, 2024, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 30” x 24”
Lucky Star, 2025, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 18” x 15”
Milucky, 2025, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 18” x 15”
High Tide, 2025, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 18” x 15”
King Of Hearts, 2025, Silver nitrate, acrylic on canvas, 18” x 15”
JIMI GLEASON Jimi Gleason was born in 1961, in Newport Beach, California, with frequent trips to Hawaii growing up. The bright colors and mercurial qualities of light of both environs profoundly influenced Gleason and would become a wellspring of inspiration as his artistic vision evolved. Along with a growing number of Southern California artists, Gleason sought dynamic materials, like silver nitrate and pearlescent paints, to express a new way of looking at art. The shift in focus was dramatic. Artworks became active catalysts to heighten one’s perceptual experience, rather than passive objects of creation to be observed. This shift in purpose, with regard to a certain genre of Southern California art, has become known as Light and Space. Jimi Gleason received his BA from UC Berkeley in 1985. He studied printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute before relocating to New York City, where he worked as a photo assistant and photo technician. Returning to California, Gleason was employed in the studio of Ed Moses for five years.
Combining the disparate technical and compositional skills developed during his exposure to printmaking, photography and mixed-media painting, Gleason is now the subject of considerable curatorial and critical acclaim. Gleason’s work has been widely exhibited and collected by major institutions including: the Hammer Museum, Frederick R. Weisman Foundation, the Laguna Beach Art Museum, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Tucson Museum of Art. Additionally, the artist’s paintings are held in a number of significant public and private collections around the world.
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY