ROY DOWELL

ROY DOWELL

ROY DOWELL

525 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011

511 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011

520 West 21st Street New York NY 10011

PINWHEELS AT THE EDGE OF DAWN: ROY DOWELL’S NEW PAINTINGS

By Ed Schad

In Roy Dowell’s Untitled (2021), there is a wonderfully odd red stripe at the top. It seems like a brazen gesture. Yet, I had seen the painting in Dowell’s studio and didn’t remember it; I only discovered it later when I examined his recent work closely.

That’s because the painting actually starts in the middle, though the colors of the central circle are muted and not as strident as the stripe. It began, Dowell told me, with abstracting from a tantric diagram, which radiates out into wobbly blue spirals that tilt the central event into a flower or a cosmological map of the sun, its orbiters, and adjacent galaxies. The landscape at the bottom then steps shyly forward, as though a hair’s breadth in from the center. A denim sea. Tugboats perhaps. And I notice the red stripe. It clips the spirals and disrupts the pictorial logic. The stripe sits on the canvas, neither background or foreground, and the whole picture pulses with strangeness.

Along this route of pictorial discovery, a fascinating thing occurs: The tantric diagram becomes pliable and starts to look like many things. I would guess that many people will look upon the diagram and think of Robert Delaunay’s disks from 1913.

Others might go to Hilma af Klint’s work from the same period. One might think of old, illuminated manuscripts with maps of heaven and hell, like the Neville of Hornby Hours, which is housed in The British Library. All told, as the composition works its magic and the eye is kept moving and Dowell’s diagram becomes unhinged from its origin. Its form takes over and oscillates between widely different eras and systems of abstraction and belief.

My point is that in Dowell’s practice, this ability of the viewer to move between and beyond referential registers seems part of the open spirit of the work. And this is what I would like to further explore.

3

* My choice of Delaunay and af Klint as potential imaginative leaps from Dowell’s Untitled is intentional. Shortly after visiting Dowell and talking through his new work with him, I read Pepe Karmel’s fine 2020 book, Abstract Art: A Global History. While engaging with Untitled, I opened Karmel’s text to find Delaunay and af Klint (along with their discs) illustrated side by side. “Yes, there is a visual connection between these two painters,” the book seemed to be saying, “and so what?” In placing the two painters together, Karmel is working through a specific problem: Can there be a unifying narrative for abstract painting, especially now that hierarchies between cultures—between centers of dominant narratives like New York; Paris; and Düsseldorf, Germany, and areas of influence outside of those lines—are problematic at best, an assertion of power at worst?

4

To take on the question, Karmel does an interesting thing: He abandons any notion that abstraction lives outside of the real world or that any cultural narrative of it can be privileged. There is no “pure abstraction,” no way of using shape and color and paint that does not refer to the world. Ultimately, no matter the culture and no matter the systems of power that run the culture, there are real access points by which connections can be made across place and time. These connections reawaken a sense of abstraction as a tool for understanding the world. Karmel groups Delaunay and af Klint through the idea of “Suns and Planets,” and he can connect them to Konstantin Yuon in Russia, Liu Kuo-sung in China, and Jafar Rouhbakhsh in Iran. And in the book, in the run of the image choices, one sees orbits and spheres, migrating across the sky, across societies, and across accounts of art history.

I speak of Karmel’s book at length because I think it is a way into Dowell’s work.

Dowell practices in painting what Karmel delineates, and he seems to have understood this nature of abstraction and art historical narrative decades ago. Instead of latching onto a particular theoretical approach or history of abstraction, Dowell, from very early in his career, preferred promiscuous and voracious collage, a layering of diverse and scattered references from all over the world, both iconic and personal. From his collected starting points, he would intuitively follow the often

unspoken and mysterious impulses of composition, working and reworking his materials until they were remade into something with visual impact. He trusted the visual power and didn’t try to shape it into a theoretical position.

Dowell’s commitment to a nonhierarchical way of gathering and combining images is at the heart of his painting. In speaking with Dowell about what he is drawn to, it is apparent that the textiles of his Quaker ancestry hold equal status with antique board games, that items bought in markets around Los Angeles or around his second home in Mexico have the potential to transmit visual interest as much as an artwork graced with fame. He speaks of three paintings that have held his sustained attention for years—Paul Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with Halo and Snake (1889), Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of Gertrude Stein (1905–1906), and Alice Neel’s Joe Gould (1933)— but then speaks of the need to move from direct sources into what the images do in and of themselves, beyond their referent.

Though it is possible to think of Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian in Dowell’s Untitled (2021), for instance, it is more interesting to take the reference and let Dowell lead you into the picture and keep you in it. The linear structure, the blocks of solid colors, the take on the grid, become a sort of hanging lamp, off-kilter and precariously balanced against a stained field of washy blue dots. The lines are not straight, and neither is the composition. Instead, those markers of De Stijl—which for me stand in for an analytic look at the meaning of the structures in the world—start to fray and unravel. Here, the red-stripe surprise comes from the two castle rim patterns, pale to the point of erasure, streaking across blocks of white. They keep it all just stable enough to float.

Many of Dowell’s recent paintings track similar trajectories. They have organizing features (circles, diamonds, open umbrellas, crosses, carbide blades) that then wander, dissolve, radiate, run, or simply ease into the pattern and texture, and the compositional oddities that unseat their primacy. They stare at you, hold you at attention, then soften and deepen into intricate personalities. Dowell’s canvases, most often vertical, hold abstraction inside their frames like the beliefs and fantasies of individual brains, so often laced with idiosyncrasy and speaking in their own dialects.

5

They flirt with becoming icons, then move subtly away from the assertiveness and confidence that the icon often exudes.

Untitled (2021) begins as one of Dowell’s more rigid designs, but the longer I view it, the more it becomes tender and human. Dowell told me that the composition began with the image of a funeral wreath of flowers held up on a tripod. Whether one knows that or not, the painting is wonderfully redolent of the passing of time, of clocks and tree rings, and of perennials on schedule. Yet this is also somehow a face, wigged perhaps and wearing suspenders. There is something sad presented here, though there is no clear story, no clear ritual, and no clear tradition. In bringing all these shapes and colors together, Dowell’s painting offers a complicated and textured form of mourning, joy, and pain, all at once. * 6

Dowell’s new paintings strike me as the sensual aftermath of ritualized systems and the visual legacies of history. Dowell’s canvases have the presence of cosmologies and beliefs—by turns compositions featuring planets and stars, mountains and rivers, labyrinths and spirals—yet they offer that presence with a handmade and open touch.

Mandalas and multitiered worlds meld into spinning pinwheels, the relaxed patterns of textiles and the wonder of a child’s protractor and compass. Dowell’s paintings are at once both organized and mysterious, in the way that a word can be before one consults a dictionary, or a symbol can be when one has lost its interpretive key.

The paintings seem wise, tracking along with an ongoing rethinking of both art history and abstraction at a time when the idea of history as a continuous chain organized around a central narrative, is seen not only to be impossible, but, in fact, never possible. Instead, cultures and their images are not tectonic; they exist with their own sense of time, they have hybrid identities, and they do not exist simultaneously with each other. Cultures blend, reorganize, and break in a series of frictions and bartered resolutions. Sometimes, they share histories. Other times, their histories seem to be irrevocably apart. And in this space, Dowell’s mindful and sensitive abstractions step forward to speak.

Ed Schad is Curator at The Broad Museum, Los Angeles, CA.

7

8

untitled #1137, 2020 Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 40 inches 152.4 x 101.6 cm

10

untitled #1138, 2020

Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 40 inches 152.4 x 101.6 cm

12

untitled #1140, 2020

Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 40 inches 152.4 x 101.6 cm

14

untitled #1146, 2020 Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 40 inches 152.4 x 101.6 cm

16

untitled #1152, 2020

Acrylic paint on linen over panel 40 x 22 inches 101.6 x 55.9 cm

18

untitled #1154, 2020

Acrylic paint on linen over panel 40 x 22 inches 101.6 x 55.9 cm

20

untitled #1159, 2020 Acrylic paint on linen over panel 54 x 48 inches 137.2 x 121.9 cm

22

untitled #1161, 2020 Acrylic paint on linen over panel 54 x 48 inches 137.2 x 121.9 cm

24

untitled #1166, 2020

Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 48 inches 152.4 x 121.9 cm

26

untitled #1169, 2020

Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 33 inches 152.4 x 83.8 cm

28

untitled #1170, 2021 Acrylic paint and pencil on linen over panel 60 x 33 inches 152.4 x 83.8 cm

30

untitled #1171, 2021

Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 48 inches 152.4 x 121.9 cm

32

untitled #1172, 2021 Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 33 inches 152.4 x 83.8 cm

34

untitled #1174, 2021 Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 40 inches 152.4 x 101.6 cm

36

untitled #1178, 2021

Acrylic paint on linen over panel 40 x 22 inches 101.6 x 55.9 cm

38

untitled #1181, 2021 Acrylic paint on linen over panel 60 x 33 inches 152.4 x 83.8 cm

40

untitled #1188, 2021 Acrylic paint on linen over panel 72 x 54 inches 182.9 x 137.2 cm

untitled #1184, 2021

Acrylic on board 18 x 12 inches 45.7 x 30.5 cm

untitled #1185, 2021 Acrylic on board 18 x 12 inches 45.7 x 30.5 cm

untitled #1186, 2021 Acrylic on board 18 x 12 inches 45.7 x 30.5 cm

untitled #1189, 2021

Acrylic on board 16 x 12 inches 40.6 x 30.5 cm

ROY DOWELL Born in Bronxville, NY in 1951 Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

EDUCATION 1975 Master of Fine Arts, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA 1973 Bachelor of Fine Arts, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA 1971 California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA

2013 James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA Proxy Gallery, Culver City, CA 2012 “Roy Dowell: Speaking in Tongues,” Galería Nina Menocal, Mexico City, Mexico 2010 Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY 2009 “Roy Dowell: New Works on Paper,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2006 “Roy Dowell: A Survey Exhibition 1981-2005,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

46

2022 Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

2004 “Roy Dowell: New Works,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2020 Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

2001 “Roy Dowell: New Works,” Finesilver Gallery, San Antonio, TX

2019 “Found in Translation,” Bolsky Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA “Some of Me and the Sum of Others,” as-is.la, Los Angeles, CA

2000 “Roy Dowell: like love, built on precedent,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2017 1969 Gallery, New York, NY 2016 “Roy Dowell: Mosaics,” Tif Sigfrids Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Little Tree,” Proxy Paris Gallery @ Galerie Ygrec, Paris, France “Roy Dowell: New Work,” James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA 2014 “Roy Dowell, New Work,” Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY

1999 Curt Marcus Gallery, New York, NY 1997 Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1995 Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Fawbush Gallery, New York, NY 1994 Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

47

1993 “Roy Dowell: Collages 1991/92,” Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA “Roy Dowell with Nancy Evans,” Fawbush Gallery, New York, NY 1991 Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1990 “Truth or Consequences,” Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1989 “Roy Dowell, Selected Works 1980–1988,” Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA 1988 “The Grand Order of Things,” Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

48

1987 Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1986 Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1983 “Roy Dowell with Peter Levinson,” Roy Boyd Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1982 Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA 1976 Comsky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2021 “Abstracted Vocabularies,” Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA 2020 “FEEDBACK” (curated by Helen Molesworth), Jack Shainman Gallery: The School, Kinderhook, NY

2019 “Constellations,” Lennon, Weinberg Inc., New York, NY 2018 “The American Academy Invitational Exhibition of Visual Art,” American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY “Make/Work” (curated by Jenene Nagy), Los Angeles Valley College, Van Nuys, CA “Vision Valley” (curated by Adam Miller), Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, CA 2017 “Synchronicity: a State of Painting,” Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY 2016 “Memory Theater” (curated by Srijon Chowdhury), Portland, OR 2015 “A Few Days,” Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY “Salon du Dessin,” Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY 2014 “Death Ship” (curated by Adam Miller and Devon Oder), The Pit, Glendale, CA “Floor Flowers” (curated by David Pagel), Claremont Graduate University Gallery, Claremont, CA “A Poem to a Raoul and Agnes” (curated by Sherman Sam), Ancient & Modern, London, United Kingdom “Left Coast: Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Art,” Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA 2013 “California Visual Music” (curated by Marcus Herse), Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Los Angeles, CA “Local Fish,” Ernie Wolff Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Roy Dowell and Alexander Kroll,” Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL 2012 “Made in LA 2012: Los Angeles Biennial,” Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Arctic Summer,” Margo Levin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Viva La Raspberries” (curated by Evan Holloway), Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York, NY

“The Early Show,” Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY “Vous Play,” JB Jurve, Los Angeles, CA “Drawn,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2011 “painting, design, speculation, generosity” (curated by Alexander Kroll), CB1 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2010 “The Jewel Thief,” Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY “New Art for a New Century: Contemporary Acquisitions, 2000–2010,” Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA “Works in Edition,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Ends and Means,” Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY 2009 “Roy Dowell” (with Lari Pittman), Kunsthaus Santa Fé Gallery, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico “Pictures of Words” (curated by David Pagel), Galerie Schmidt Maczollek, Cologne, Germany “Reading Standing Up,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2002 “LA Post-Cool” (curated by Michael Duncan), San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA and Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA “Roy Dowell, Daniel Mendel-Black, Alexis Smith,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2001 “Cal’s Art, Sampling California Painting,” University of North Texas Art Gallery, Denton, TX “Seeing or Believing,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “The Importance of Being Earnest” (curated by Michael Duncan), Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 2000 “Drawings 2000,” Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY “The Big Go Stands for Goodness: Corita Kent’s 1960s POP” (curated by Michael Duncan), Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles, CA, traveled to Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, UT; Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV and Art Gallery, University of Texas, San Antonio, TX

2008 “ARAC@AAM: Anderson Ranch at the Aspen Art Museum,” Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO “20 Years Ago Today: Supporting Individual Artists in L.A.,” Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA “Looky-See,” Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA “Summer,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Las Vegas Collects Contemporary,” Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV

1999 “Roy Dowell,” Curt Marcus Gallery, New York, NY

2007 “Paper,” Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY

1996 “25 Years: An Exhibition of Selected Works,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Between Reality and Abstraction: California Art at the End of the Century,” Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX

2006 “Couples Discourse,” Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 2003 “Raid the Icebox,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1998 “90069,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1997 “Woven in Oaxaca: Rugs from Mexico,” A/D, New York, NY “Smoggy Abstractions,” Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI

1995 “Pasted Paper: Collage in the 20th Century,” Louis Stern Fine Arts, Los Angeles, CA

49

1994 “Balls World Cup USA 1994,” Newspace, Los Angeles, CA “Twentieth–Century Drawings,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA “In Plain Sight: Abstract Painting in Los Angeles” (curated by Frances Colpitt), Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, TX and University of Texas, Arlington, TX “Paintings of the 80’s,” Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Fractured Identity: Cut and Paste” (curated by Lindsay Walt and Tina Potter), Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY “pen & ink” (curated by Michael Darling), Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA “Very Visual Dialogue: Personal Journeys in Abstract Painting” (curated by Tom Krumpak), Rancho Santiago College Gallery, Santa Ana, CA

50

1993 “The Return of the Cadavre Exquis,” The Drawing Center, New York, NY, traveled to The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; The Forum, St. Louis and The American Center, Paris, France “Object Bodies” (curated by Terry Myers), Emison Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN and Turman Art Gallery, Terre Haute, IN “School Days,” Jan Baum Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Collage,” Brian Gross Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA “Aspects of Painting in Los Angeles,” College of Creative Studies, Santa Barbara, CA 1992 “LAX: The Los Angeles Exhibition 1992, Coming Unraveled” (curated by Anne Ayres), Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA “California North and South,” Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO “Roy Dowell, Paul McCarthy, René Petropoulos,” Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1991 “Quick Coagulation Forms the August Corpse,” Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

“20th Century Collage,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, traveled to Centro Cultural del México Contemporáneo, Mexico City and Musée d’art moderne et d’art contemporain, Nice, France 1990 “TIME: A Portfolio of Etchings,” Marc Richards Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “The Ends of Painting/The Edges of Abstraction” (curated by David Pagel), Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “Phoenix Triennial” (curated by Bruce Kurtz), Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ “Past & Present,” Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Eastern Aesthetic” (curated by Nancy Riegelman), Allport Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1989 “I to Eye,” Cirrus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Cultural Fetish” (curated by Lawrence Gipe), Pasadena City College Art Gallery, Pasadena, CA 1988 “New Works on Paper,” Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1987 “Works on Paper,” Pence Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “First LACE Annual” (curated by Ned Rifkin), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA 1984 “Eccentric Images,” Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Roy Dowell, DeLoss McGraw, Frank Romero,” Koplin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “The Cotton Exchange Exhibition,” Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA “Olympiad,” Koplin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1983 “Variations 2: 7 Los Angeles Painters” (curated by Constance Mallinson), Security Pacific Plaza Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “5 Painters,” Roy Boyd Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1981 “Paintings: Dowell, Harwood, Mitchell, Rabbin,” Los Angeles Valley College, Van Nuys, CA

SELECT COLLECTIONS

1980 “In a Major and a Minor Scale” (curated by Wayne Kuwada and Candice Lee), Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Oriental Mystique,” California State University, Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

1977 “100 Directions in Southern California Art,” Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA

Nora Eccles Harrison Museum, Logan, UT

1976 Ellie Blankfort Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Phoenix Museum of Art, Phoenix, AZ

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA

Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA

San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA GRANTS, COMMISSIONS AND FELLOWSHIPS

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

2012 LAX-ART Billboard Project, La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA California Community Foundation, Artists’ Resource for Completion Grant, Los Angeles, CA

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA

2006 Constructed Histories, Los Angeles Metro, Orange Line, Canoga Park, CA 1998 “Ajax” for Windows on Wilshire, commissioned by Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA 1995 Art Matters Inc. Fellowship, New York, NY 1991 Djerassi Artist Residency Fellowship, Woodside, CA 1989 “Nature Culture,” commissioned by Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA

Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

51

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

ROY DOWELL 3 February – 12 March 2022 Miles McEnery Gallery 511 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011 tel +1 212 445 0051 www.milesmcenery.com Publication © 2021 Miles McEnery Gallery All rights reserved Essay © 2021 Ed Schad Director of Publications Anastasija Jevtovic, New York, NY Photography by Christopher Burke Studio, Los Angeles, CA Color separations by Echelon, Santa Monica, CA Catalogue designed by McCall Associates, New York, NY ISBN: 978-1-949327-66-3 Cover: untitled #1161, (detail), 2020