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17/11/2006

Two exhibitions

Lawrence Asher Gallery, Los Angeles

Lawrence Asher Gallery proudly presents two superb artists, each in their first solo show, exploring similar themes from divergent points of view. Miguel Osuna and Jon Tarry examine the way we view, respond and adapt to our surrounding landscapes here in Southern California and abroad. They both are drawn to this once-expansive terrain, now sprawling megalopolis, for different as well as similar reasons.

Miguel Osuna is from the port city of Mazatlan, Mexico. He spends much time exhibiting and working in Mexico as well as northern and southern California. These oils on canvas, board and metal beautifully depict the pace at which we cover the open, endless fields and sprawling city-canyons. The light and color calmly, precisely stimulate the senses to capture a moment in time at a very special place.

Jon Tarry hails from the coastal expanse and urban/rural juxtaposition of Western Australia where he is both a student and teacher of architecture and design. The images portrayed exude the effective and powerful Southern California energy as well as that of an artist in harmony with both natural and man-made forms. His paintings, wall sculptures and mixed media wonders suggest a keen observer in touch with his surroundings and the forms that comprise it.

Opening reception: November 18th, 2006, 6 - 10 pm.

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Miguel Osuna - My pictorial work and how I approach it have a lot to do with the urban everyday experience and the situations this originates. How we view our modern life and how we see our surroundings affect the pace of our existence. We have no time to observe, to capture the detail; we are always in a state of motion.

The spaces we inhabit, even our relationships with others, become, to various degrees, blurs of sensations, feelings, memories. 19th Century urban life in the nascent European mega-cities, the schizophrenic modernity of New York in the 30s and 50s, enabled urban realities like the one we know in a place like California. In this way of life, our experience becomes a series of snapshots as we pass through spaces and times.

For me, Los Angeles is a perfect example of this. I find these notions of perpetual movement, fleeting and temporary reality, a great source of inspiration for my work. I am not very interested in creating landscapes accessorized with urban elements but rather images that are moments or sensations consumed in a very near and immediate past... or future. An image becomes only one instance in an endless series of possibilities. At first sight, it may seem these scenes are the result of incidental compositions, arrived at almost by accident. On the contrary, for me, it is of paramount importance to build environments of rigorous realism in their spatial construction. I intend to immerse the viewer in a credible reality, to observe from within and anchor the experience in a familiar language, and at that precise moment, snatch all trace of detail in that environment. An apparently serene landscape painfully vivisected presents considerations that may belong in alien planes of perception. It is up to the observer to reconstruct that moment and assign all the convenient personal implications.

Common urban elements, utilitarian works of engineering perceived as banal provide me with great emotional value that I can, in turn, manifest in my pieces. Perspectives of speed and transportation naturally deliver visual effects that can be well translated into personal stories. Each story with a present tense and a conclusion is as different as each viewer. Technique wise, I am interested in using traditional mediums to deliver photographic appearance with oil paint applied with brushes. Geometric precision with blurred edges and fades. The permanence and tradition of oil painting used to capture fleeting scenes in an ephemeral reality...

Jon Tarry - Crossings: Situations are responded to in a series of representational artworks. Recollection is fleeting: Scenes, sites, people, all sifted, leaving only partial residues that hover between the real and the distortion of visual memories. In ‘Crossing the Bridge’, the passers- by resist the urge to look back as they slowly fade away while crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. In a work titled ‘Hope’, a friend seeks out a friend in the shadow of a non-sign that hangs on a vacant facade down Second and Hope Street. ‘Hudson River Blur 3’ slips by in the golden light of late afternoon, late fall. The Hudson sweeps away a past saturated in the sounds of synchronized machines.

In ‘Cross Street’, an image Horizon Street LA, is shown viewed from the air. This panorama of quartz sky is marked with a truncated cross. ‘Horizon 58’ bends the space between the second and third dimension expanding the field of vision by suggesting a continuation in multiple directions. These works intend to prompt a conversation in art that reframes a second order of modernism through means of stealth formalism.

Everyday is rendered in moments of contemporary sublime. One exists in a state of constant transition; crossing the street, the bridge, the oceans, the skies, in and out then back and in again. Away from here, there is no ceasing or retreat, only surrender at the cross streets and endless horizons.

Jon Tarry is an active practitioner with 25 years experience. He holds a Masters in Architecture and Sculpture, and has completed projects in America, Australia and Venice, Italy.

Jon’s artistic and architectural highlights include studio investigation of folding spaces, fragmentation and historical fusion in the form of wall and floor sculptures. Other artworks are recent extensions of gallery projects and among them are:
- ‘Marginale’ a commissioned sculpture in Venice with architect Carlo Scarpa.
- ‘Fold’ and ‘One on One’, at the Poll House with architect Gary Marinko, Perth.
- ‘Horizon’ with desert modernist William Cody, Palm Springs, CA.
- ‘Point of Separation,’ The Batavia Coast Marine Centre with architects Bret White and Amanda Ainslie, Separation Point, Geraldton.
- ‘Screen - Wind Markers’ with Matt Dickmann.
- ‘Comet Bay’ with architects Donaldson and Warn.
Landscape projects include, time based work with Geoff Warn, Warn Wetheral Street Garden. ‘Rose No More’, with Dillon Warn. ‘Turbine’ wind stations California desert, Los Angeles and Albany coast.

Lawrence Asher Gallery
5820 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 100 - Los Angeles
Gallery hours, Tuesday - Friday 11am - 6pm, Saturday, 12noon - 5pm

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