DAVID LIGARE
ELEMENTS
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David Ligare Elements
August 30 - October 12, 2019
Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com cover: Falling Man (detail), 2016, oil on canvas, 80 x 60 inches
David Ligare: Elements The essence of foundational imagery and philosophy in cultures around the world is the balance between opposing forces. This is true in ancient Greece as well as in ancient China (yin-yang). For many years, I have made paintings that illustrated this idea. Many of my earliest still lifes were about objects in opposition: for instance, a rock and a leaf, candles and a sponge. In his essay, “The Birth of Tragedy,” the German Philosopher, Frederic Nietzsche called this the “primal unity.” He used the example of the dichotomy between the Greek gods, Apollo and Dionysus as examples of these opposing forces, Apollo being the god of order and rationality and Dionysus, the god of wine and irrationality. Since I began my study and use of Greco-Roman mythology, history, philosophy and art over forty years ago, there have been two ancient philosophers who have guided me as well. First, there was Plato with his strict structural orderliness and search for abstract ideals such as truth, justice and beauty; and then there was his pupil, Aristotle, who believed in rational inquiry about both the natural sciences and human social interactions. The hidden structural aspects of my paintings and their attention to a new ideal follow the philosophy of Plato, while my very particular use of natural sunlight and careful observations of nature most closely follow Aristotle. These deep thinkers have been frequent sources of new insights in the two and a half millennia since their passing. They are an example of the marriage of the ancient and the modern. The works in my exhibition at LewAllen Galleries follow several tracks but represent the mixture of ancient and modern that I have alluded to above. The contrast between the two rock paintings, one in a desert (Landscape with a Rock) and the other at the sea (Seascape with Rock), represent a kind of totemic simplicity that nevertheless suggests the whole of history. The horse, alone in the desert in Landscape with a Horse, is also primal as a timeless connection between humanity and nature. Landscape with a Cloud suggests ephemerality and the evaporative, ever-changing nature of culture. My figure paintings are more specifically narrative. The Falling Man (Icarus) was inspired by my thinking about the dangers of our dependence on modern technology. In the Greek myth of Icarus, the young man is given wings made of wax and feathers in order to escape from the island of Crete where he has been held captive. He was told not to fly too high because the sun would melt the wax and he would fall. He did not heed the advice and fell into the sea. 2
The Woman with a Box (Pandora) is based on my earlier Penelope painting, and both were influenced by the Greek Grave Stele of Hegeso. In my painting of Pandora she holds a box similar to the box on Hegeso’s lap but rather than holding jewelry it has let escape all of the evils of the world. Finally, the Night Diver, who is just touching the water of a moonlit sea is, like my 2003 painting of a sun-lit diver, a man going from one element into another, from air into water but also, life into death. The precedence for this painting is the fresco from the inside of the Diver’s Tomb in Paestum, an ancient Greek colony in southern Italy. My project of reintroducing narrative into contemporary art in the late 1970’s was all about meaning. Foundational myths and philosophy from ancient Greece, and additionally, ancient Rome have elements that underlie and inform our contemporary life. As an example, I have investigated the concept of symmetria, which signifies the balance and integration of unequal parts rather than a balance between equal elements. It is an idea first put forth by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (570 – 495 BCE) representing the idea of harmonic integration – of the diverse parts of the human body, nature, man’s relation to nature, and an integrative society. The narrative of philosophical thought forms our collective view of the world. The elements of foundational texts and imagery are once again new territory for the artist. David Ligare, 2019
Looking at a David Ligare painting, one is likely to feel a sense of the hallowed. In his images – labored over by the artist for months, if not years – there are discernable resonances of the profound, as though the artist has distilled the very essences of beauty in a manner freed from the clutter of contemporary life. Ligare’s artistry is informed by a deep learning and appreciation of classicism; its ageless ideals, parables, stories and achievements that inform our collective imagination and carry the truths and wisdom on which our civilization is formed. 3
Though they are objects of beauty in their own right, Ligare’s paintings can function as subtle antidotes for the cultural amnesia that plagues our world today. In the allegories of classicism there are contained life-sustaining ideals and beliefs that transcend time and can lift us above the erosion of civility and torn social fabric that currently diminish the quality of our lives. Ligare’s images often allude to and remind us of this wisdom woven into the unfolding tapestry of civilization derived from Greek and Roman mythology and philosophy. For more than fifty years, Ligare has made exquisitely executed paintings that seem like reincarnations of this spirit of classicism. These works have incorporated an evocative visual language inspired by Greco/Roman mythology, art and culture. In their composition, they echo the graceful elegance of classical ideals of balance, restraint and geometric proportion. Often their subjects allude to Greek and Roman myths, which Ligare views as timelessly relevant to excellence in contemporary life. In his enthralling works, he transforms his subjects – statuesque horses, human figures, colossal rocks and more – into totemic embodiments of classical ideals: harmony and unity from oppositional forces, the virtue of proportionality, and philosophic modes of thought that, if remembered, have the capacity to ignite our curiosity, invite reflection, enlarge our vision, and lift us beyond captivity in the ordinary and banal. Ligare is a brilliant technician and highly learned painter whose approach to creating his paintings is influenced by what he has observed in the work of Nicolas Poussin, the great 17th century French classical painter. About this, Ligare has written:
I concluded that there was a fullness [in Poussin’s paintings] … that could be broken down into three basic elements: structure, surface and content. The structure includes the geometric design and proportions, the surface was the look of nature reverently recreated with brush and paint, and the content was the theme or story whose purpose was to communicate a specific idea to the viewer. This tripartite criteria for a work of art has guided me ever since.
In many of his paintings, Ligare conjoins classicism with a thoroughly modern reverence for nature, social diversity, cultural traditions, and ideals of beauty, learning, and knowledge in which the artist believes there reside enduring keys to finding meaning and significance in human life. Through his masterful integration of eternal ideals and contemporary 4
sensibilities, Ligare's restrained and gracefully balanced imagery resurrects the deep satisfactions that man has always sought and found from aesthetic and spiritual curiosity and craving. Ligare's work inspires as it reminds. In his reverent and meditative paintings there is to be found sources for new meanings and vitality of the human spirit. Ligare invokes the concept of “recurrent classicism,” which refers to artists and art movements since the Renaissance that have turned to Hellenistic and Roman culture in order to suggest ideas of enduring meaning and relevance to contemporary life. Though often cloaked within imagery whose independent beauty makes subtle any precise connection to a particular symbolic reference, Ligare’s still-lifes and figures always contain abundant information to entice pause, inspire wonder and contemplation, and offer a sense that there is something spiritual underlying in the picture. As Ligare writes in his artist statement for this exhibition, “Foundational myths and philosophy from ancient Greece, most particularly, and additionally ancient Rome, have elements that enduringly underpin and inform our contemporary life.” These elements, to Ligare, form the basis for the way our civilization views, inhabits, and moves within the world, and his paintings embody their ideals. Ligare portrays some of the subject matter in this exhibition—idealized expressions of movement and stillness, weight and weightlessness—within the deserts of the American West (Landscape with a Rock) and off the coastline of Southern California (Seascape with Rock). Other works reference Greek myths that he sees as timelessly pertinent. In Falling Man, for example, Ligare paints a figure plummeting to the sea who he identifies as Icarus, the Greek mythic character who flew too close to the sun, melting his wax wings. Elsewhere he paints a seated woman identified as Pandora holding a box. In Greek myth, Pandora was given a box by the gods, but though she was forbidden to open it, she did so anyway and unleashed hardships and evil spirits into the world. On canvas, these characters detach and evolve beyond their specific mythic narratives; instead, they subtly comment on contemporary life—the perils of excessive hubris or the willful ignoring of danger—and embrace a more archetypal attitude toward subject. Translating elemental symbols and settings onto canvas, Ligare uses an incredible imaginative skill as well as technical ability with paint and an astute attention to 5
compositional and conceptual balance to manifest the harmonious relationships that he sees as existing between all earthly things. In discussing his work, David Ligare often invokes the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (570-495 BC), who is most known today for his theories regarding mathematics and geometry. To Ligare, Pythagoras’ observation of “harmonic integration,” which unites nature, the human body, and society, informs our collective understanding of the world and our place within it. Through his career, Ligare’s paintings have implemented the visual elements of ancient Greece and Rome to evoke the concerns of the present—just as classicism has been used throughout Western art history. To art historian Scott A. Shields, Ligare’s use of classicism extends beyond a visual language, noting that “[For Ligare,] classicism was more than an aesthetic construct; it had the potential to suggest social responsibility.” Ligare views the function of art and culture itself to be the pursuit of excellence in all things and not just in appearances—what the Greeks called “arête.” For Ligare, this arête exists both in the natural laws that govern the universe as well as the inner excellence found within the everyman. The artist notes that “It is my strong belief that the classicism of ancient Greece possesses a fundamental relevance; [classicism is] an amalgam of styles and ideas from the earliest and smokiest of times. It absorbed something from all of the cultures that it came into contact with, from Egypt and Africa to Asia, creating in the process an enormously inclusive ideal.” Kenneth R. Marvel
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Still life with Pitcher and Cherries, 2000 oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches 7
Falling Man (Icarus), 2016, oil on canvas, 80 x 60 inches 8
Cloud Study, 2011 oil on canvas, 16 x 12 inches 9
Landscape with Cloud, 2019, oil on canvas, 60 x 80 inches
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Landscape with a Rock, 2016, oil on canvas, 60 x 80 inches 11
Red Pepper (for EW), 2019, oil on canvas, 11.75 x 7.88 inches
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Prickly Pear, 2019 oil on canvas, 11.75 x 7.88 inches
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Landscape with a Horse, 2019, oil on canvas, 60 x 80 inches 14
Seascape with Rock, 2011, oil on canvas, 60 x 90 inches 15
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Night Diver, 2019 oil on canvas, 60 x 90 inches 17
Woman with Box (Pandora), 2016, oil on canvas, 38 x 48 inches 18
Young Man with a Crow (The Conversation), 2014, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches 19
Still Life with Gold Sphere II, 2017, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches 20
Cloud Study, 2018, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches 21
Horse Study, 2018, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches 22
Apple, 2019, oil on canvas, 11.75 x 7.88 inches 23
Magna Fide, 2014, oil on canvas, 60 x 80 inches
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Ideal Head, 2015, oil on canvas, 18 x 14 inches
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Still Life with Rock and Shell, 2016, oil on panel, 20 x 24 inches
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Study for Landscape with Ruin, 2000, oil on linen, 8 x 10 inches
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Rock Study, 2010 oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches 28
David Ligare
(b. 1945: Oak Park, IL)
EDUCATION
2007
Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA
2006
Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (also '03,
'98, '94, '92, '88, '86, '85, '83)
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
2005
Plus One Gallery, London, UK
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
2002
Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
The Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CN
(also '99, '97)
Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi (The Department of
Viewpoint: The Pastures of Heaven, The National
Steinbeck Center, Salinas, CA
M.H. De young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
2000
Koplin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
The Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
1998
The Classical Impulse, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
L'eta dell'Oro, Il Polittico, Rome, Italy
The Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
1997
Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
The San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
1996
Ponte Vecchio/Torre Nova, A Project by David Ligare,
The Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas
The Prince of Wales' Institute of Architecture,
The Museum of Art & Archeology, University of Missouri
London, UK
Landscape and Language, Monterey Museum of
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Art, Monterey, CA
2019
Elements, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
1995
Stiebel Modern, New York, NY (also '93)
2017
Winfield Gallery, Carmel, CA
Stages for Contemplation, Fresno Museum,
Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
Fresno, CA
Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, CA
1994
Koplin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (also '92, '88, '85, '83)
2015
David Ligare: California Classicist, Crocker Art
1993
Stiebel Modern, New York
Museum, Sacramento, CA
1990
Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York, NY
Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
1985
Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York, NY
Chris Windfield Gallery, Carmel, CA
1984
University Art Museum, University of California,
2013
River/Mountain/Sea, Fresno Art Museum, Frenso
Santa Barbara, CA
CA & Monterey Museum of Art
1983
Hall Galleries, Dallas, Texas
2012
Chris Windfield Gallery, Carmel, CA
1978
Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, NY
Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
1977
The Act of Drawing, Phoenix Art Museum, AZ
2010
Plus One Gallery, London, UK
1973
Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York, NY
2009
Hartnell College Gallery, Salinas, CA
1970
D H LIGARE, Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
1969
Wickersham Gallery, New York, NY
2008
Drawings and Prints of the Uffizi), Florence, Italy
Winfield Gallery, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com Š 2019 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC 32 Artwork Š David Ligare