William Turner Gallery will host an opening reception this Saturday night from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm for two new exhibitions at the gallery.
The first is a solo show for Curtis Ripley entitled, “Here and Now,” which features new abstract oil paintings by the Los Angeles based artist.
Ripley paints atmospheric, improvisational works, often drawing inspiration from pieces of music or verses from poetry.
The second show is an exhibition of new work from Michel Tabori entitled “In Search of Lost Time.” Drawing inspiration from Marcel Proust, Tabori’s new body of work explores the emotive power of color.
Both exhibitions will run through April 5, 2014.
The gallery is located at 2525 Michigan Ave. E1 (Bergamot Station), Santa Monica. Its hours are Monday through Saturday from 11 am to 6 pm.
For more information, call 310.453.0909 or visit www.williamturnergallery.com.
Michel Tabori
Artist Michel Tabori has drawn upon the writings of Marcel Proust for inspiration for his latest series of paintings called “In Search Of Lost Time.”
After reading Proust’s novel, “Remembrance of Things Past,” it occurred to Tabori that Proust, although usually perceived as a writer, was also a kind of painter. He was struck by the similarities between his paintings and Proust’s writing.
It was Proust’s extraordinary use of color that resonated with Tabori the most.
The author uses a color palette to create a fusion of emotions, often reflecting a state of bliss in the same way Tabori attempts to express in his paintings. Proust used words as a palette, and Tabori uses a palette as words.
Tabori’s paintings are about emotional experiences and blissful acts. He uses colors and textures as sensory triggers.
His paintings tell a story, but Tabori shies away from the typical narrative, instead using colors and abstracted imagery to deconstruct and then rebuild the central theme.
Like Proust, Tabori draws on memories set off by a certain light or a certain color, and then follows the resulting stream of consciousness, allowing it to shape his process.
In Tabori’s work, there are visual cues that hint at what is being seen, but the subject is never entirely revealed.
His paintings often depict unusual behavior and pleasurable pursuits that some might ordinarily reject.
But portrayed in the abstract, the viewer is permitted to explore deeper feelings, their own or those expressed by the subject, and celebrate them as a common elated, even ecstatic human experience regardless of one’s own personal choices, tastes, prejudices or predilections.
Michel Tabori was born in Paris and raised in New York. He currently lives and works in Venice, California.
For more information about Tabori, visit www.taboristudio.com.
Curtis Ripley
Los Angeles-based artist Curtis Ripley leaves behind reference to worldly objects in his new exhibition of work called “Here And Now: Recent Paintings.”
He abandons any semiotic tendencies in search of something more elemental. These works are improvisational – Ripley’s pictorial concern lies with creating an atmosphere, a spatial depth and a mood. His work alludes to those things that are the most difficult to describe – a season, a time of day, a quality of light or an emotion.
Taking cues from the anti-figurative aesthetic of American Abstract Expressionists, Ripley’s process is one of spontaneity and gesture.
Color is applied in broad strokes atop a black gesso surface. The paintings show the marks of their creation, splatters and drips are allowed to live on the surface, serving as reminders of the artist’s process.
Ripley uses brushes and rags to wipe out and repaint the surface, obscuring previous layers while gradually building up others to create even deeper space and movement.
As Ripley says of his work, “My hope is to create paintings that are timeless and poetic and full of life.”
Much like the pioneers of abstraction that came before him, Jackson Pollock and Wassily Kandinsky, music plays an important role in Ripley’s creative process. His rhythmic brushstrokes dance across the canvases and these flickering flashes of color result in bursts of sparkling light.
Ripley’s paintings are lyrical – he cites poetry as a key influence, stating, “It is the economy of means, the resistance to strict interpretation and the intimate relationship with the viewer which I find essential. These paintings are not puzzles. They are meant to be experienced.”
This show marks Ripley’s sixth solo exhibition with William Turner Gallery. Curtis Ripley was born in Lubbock, Texas in 1949. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
For more information about Ripley, visit www.curtisripley.com.
