Great contemporary painting is never an exercise for the
passive. Contemporary painting challenges the perceptions of the viewer and
presents something new within the confines of the canvas space. A painting
communicates something more than what’s on the picture plane. Gladstone’s
approach to painting is like the early 20th century painter Wassily
Kandinsky, who began abstraction by playing with forms that were familiar yet
abstracted into something strange and unacquainted. Wendell Gladstone's new
body of work, "Fever Pitch," challenges perceptions of contemporary
painting while in the meantime presents a narrative about love and the feelings
that occupy such relationships.
Gladstone plays with form, color and composition. These
paintings are not for the passive. The viewer is forced to look at the picture
plane, where acid and pastel colors flood the canvas. The figures are
recognizable in that the paintings show as the observer views, the lines become
shapes, the shapes become figures, the figures intertwine, merge, curve, swirl,
convene, and morph to become a narrative involving men, women, animals, cats, and dogs as
they dance with the formations that are invested within each other. Bodies become form and then forms become bodies as everything is connected by each other via line and figure.
Gladstone’s Surrealistic approach to figuration gives each
painting a psychological dimension where the figures and characters relate to both
the literal and to the subconscious; where the narratives relate to the
emotional and subjective states of being. The active viewer is thus becoming a participant
in the paintings subject matter. The
observer is then immersed in the picture. Gladstone’s latest work is excellent.
This is a must-see show.
On view until February 17, 2018.
Wendell Gladstone "Fever Pitch"
Shulamit Nazarian
616 N La Brea AvenueLos Angeles, California 90036
(310) 281-0961
info@shulamitnazarian.com
Hours: Tues to Saturday, 10 to 6 pm
http://www.shulamitnazarian.com/
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