(August 2007 - Santa Monica, CA) On September 8,
2007, Orange County-based artist Jimi Gleason will unveil his
most ambitious work to date: two massive works on opposing gallery
walls, bracketing the gallery with his signature color-field
abstractions. Working with acrylic on canvas, Gleason engages in
what he calls "visual problem solving"-the establishment of an
environment (the problem) within which balance and form create a
harmony (the solution). Visually, this process plays out in a
naturalistic movement of iridescent elements to and from the edges
of the canvas, evoking severe landscapes photographed from high
altitudes or the mutable, viscous appearance of melting matter.
As with Gleason's earlier work, these pieces
possess a strict architecture of color and form, but it is the
artist's organic process of shaping the paint that leads to a
striking finished product: powerfully transcendental works of
gestural abstraction that provide a meditative focal point on any
wall. The sheer size of his new work establishes an uncharted
territory for Gleason-one in which the highly personal reflective
state of the work is impressed upon the shared forum of the public
space. Gleason's work is included in such notable public collections
as the Frederick Weisman Museum Collection in Malibu and the Eli
Broad/Sun America Collection.
Meanwhile in the Small Gallery, New York-based
artist and RISD graduate Hedi Sorger will present a perfect
complement to Gleason's massive work-a series of small acrylic on
panel pieces that pays particular attention to the finer points of
composition. Sorger finishes her pieces with a polymer coating,
imbuing each naturalistic work with a brilliant, industrial sheen.
She has recently garnered a tremendous amount of interest from
collectors ever since her work sold out entirely within a week after
New York's Red Dot Fair in February 2007. This is Sorger's first
major show.
Mineo Mizuno is an internationally
recognized leader in ceramics. His acrylic and ceramic "droplet"
shaped pieces transcend the traditional expectations of their media,
launching them into formal territory usually reserved for painting
and sculpture. He will show a selection of new work in the gallery's
newly resurfaced entrance garden.
