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5/10/2006

Linden Frederick

Forum Gallery, Los Angeles

Solo show

Forum Gallery presents the exhibition Linden Frederick: Painting Noir from October 6th through November 18th, 2006, with an opening reception on Friday evening October 6th from 7-9:00 p.m. The artist will be present. The exhibition includes twelve recent paintings which explore new territory while adhering stylistically to the artist’s recognized genre.

Combining an ever-present stillness in his compositions with a masterfully rendered incandescent light, Frederick paints omnipresent moods: moments of nostalgic longing, crepuscular enchantment, and dreamy contemplation. Often compared to the paintings of Edward Hopper, Frederick’s work portrays settings in which a human presence is strongly felt but noticeably unrevealed. This elusive quality might best be described in the artist’s own words as a “space between things that are known", a space which Frederick claims his paintings inhabit.

In withholding a narrative associated with other people, the artist engenders a direct association with the viewer to replace any protagonist. This theatrical element in Frederick’s work is accentuated in his current Painting Noir series. As with film, the use of the word noir implies a certain edginess or disquiet which nevertheless allures. In the noir paintings Frederick achieves this tenuous, nervous counterbalance with cinematographic deftness.

Wheel of Fortune, 10 O’clock News, and Late Night are three new, night paintings in which the respective dramas are triggered by television sets, which are the only sources of light and warily invite the viewer into an otherwise uninviting setting. For instance, Wheel of Fortune offers a frontal view of a small, two-story, triangular roofed deck house with a large staircase leading up to the front door. It appears to be the still of the night, a dark gray-blue sky suggesting the refracting of distant moonlight. Through a window comes the yellowish, mesmerizing glow of the TV, optically drawing us into the scene while stirring our own thoughts and memories.

Beams of light emanating from unseen car headlights cast an eerie yet seductive glow in the paintings No Exit and Yield. In Watcher a telescope faces a high rise apartment complex sitting on a bluff, whereas in 25 Cents another telescope watches an oil tanker and car ferry moving across a bay. In the dim light the rounded forms of the telescopes nearly have the semblance of human faces, furtive onlookers in the tenebrous night. If the telescopes indeed have magically become surrogate figures for another animate presence, who could that presence be other than the viewer, invited onto an enigmatic stage-set by an ingenious artist and asked to complete the experience?

Linden Frederick trained at the Ontario College of Art and the Academia di Belle Arti in Florence. His work is in the private and public collections of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Portland, Maine, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, New York, Putnam Investments, Boston, MBNA Corporation in Wilmington, Delaware, and Sprint Corporation, amongst others.

Opening reception: Friday, October 6, 7-9 pm

Immage: Linden Frederick, “Passenger", 2006, oil on linen, 35 x 35 inches.

Forum Gallery
8069 Beverly Blvd. (at Crescent Heights Blvd.) - Los Angeles
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

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