L.C. Armstrong by Marlborough Gallery

L . C. A R M S T R O N G

L.C. ARMSTRONG R E C E N T PA I N T I N G S

SEPTEMBER 16 - OCTOBER 18, 2014

40 WEST 57TH STR EET N E W YO R K , N E W YO R K 1 0 0 1 9 | ( 2 1 2 ) 5 4 1 4 9 0 0 M A R L B O R O U G H G A L L E R Y.C O M

Pink Cattleya Over Honey Moon, 2014, acrylic on linen on birch panel, 20 x 16 in., 50.8 x 40.6 cm

THE APOCALYPTIC SUBLIME IN L.C. ARMSTRONG’S NEW WORK by Adrian “I will tell you in a few words who I am: lover of the hummingbird that darts to the flower beyond the rotted sill where my feet are propped; lover of bright needlepoint and the bright stitching fingers of humorless old ladies bent to their sweet and infamous designs; lover of parasols made from that same puffy stuff as young girl’s underdraws.” So begins John Hawkes’ novel Second Skin, first published in 1964 and since revered as a groundbreaking example of what has been termed ‘postmodern’ or ‘meta’ fiction. “Lover of the hummingbird” indeed, L.C. Armstrong’s practice might stand comparison to the domain of literature rather than the usual list of her artistic peers, from that appropriately named flower-painter Frans Floris to Balthasar van der Ast and Johannes Bosschart, through Bollongier and van Huysum to Redouté and Audubon. For Armstrong, like Hawkes, has taken a traditional skill, the perfect rendition of flora, fauna and the animal kingdom, but used it for an altogether more ambiguous purpose, both critique and celebration of our contemporary landscape in every sense. Just as Hawkes uses his talent as a writer to conjure what seems a historical, perhaps Victorian, atmosphere whilst telling an ostensibly modern story, so Armstrong’s paintings exist in a curious zone of temporal dislocation, utterly current and ultimately timeless. Reading a work of ‘meta-fiction,’ whether the New York trilogy of Paul Auster or Georges Perec’s masterpiece Life A User’s Manual, it is the technical dexterity of the author that remains all important, their ability to sustain an addictive narrative drive, worthy of Dickens or Conan Doyle, whilst deploying this storytelling skill for an entirely different purpose far more complex and sophisticated than mere page-turning pleasure. Adapting narrative techniques from the 18th century picaresque through to 19th century potboiler, the ‘postmodern’ writer, as opposed to previous avant-garde practitioners, relishes the challenge of matching their predecessors in technique and expertise whilst producing something which is neither pastiche nor parody but a work of its own distinct value and identity. The effect, as with Armstrong, is deliberately disorienting if not destabilizing, for though lured by the pleasure of the surface grace, pull and undertow of the plot, one is always aware that something is not quite right, that the established order which this work apparently parallels, the sanctity of the narrative device itself, has been subverted, infected perhaps, by an entirely contemporary disquiet or doubt.

Dannatt Yet these writers who initially felt obliged to signal their difference by overt distancing devices, eventually found themselves so taken with the actual act of narration that they became committed to the process of fiction in itself. Similarly, many artists who embarked on figurative painting from a metaphoric or parodic position discovered over time it was so rich a form to not require “quotation marks” or qualifiers; now they just wanted to paint, and get better at doing so, deeply hooked by default on the craft. Whilst the subversive subtext of Armstrong’s work used to be signaled by her use of a real bomb fuse, a literal trace of danger which always added some frisson to the seeming Arcadian idyll, it is notable that this device has gradually faded from her œuvre, her most recent paintings eschewing its presence. Likewise the gloss glaze which used to separate spectator from spectacle (rather as Francis Bacon used specially reflective glass to keep the viewer at one further remove) has also dissolved away. These two “signature” elements of Armstrong’s work, the gunpowder trail and reflective varnish, are no longer necessary to make clear her own originality, her place within art history, the distinction of her vision, bolder, without such distractions. In their place comes an even more heightened palette, an almost hallucinatory intensity of light, a distilled essence of luminosity which grants these last works their own uncanny aura, some stained glass apocalypse forged from the strange drugs of Odilon Redon, a spectacular fin-de-siècle finale worthy of Fantin-Latour, ecological endgame. Do these brooding clouds signal a classic Hudson River sunset or Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown? Is this the accidental beauty of toxic waste or last flourish of a final sun? Even the still wonder of a winter park comes freighted with the menace of another Ice Age, the snows not of “yesteryear” but of some truly chilling tomorrow. To finish with such literary associations, these recent works by Armstrong surely have something of the spirit of Blake in their fiery brilliance and visionary potency. But finally perhaps this is not so much the Romanticism of Blake as the ‘Neo-Romanticism’ of an entire generation of writers and artists who came after, their most famous exemplar being the poet Dylan Thomas; The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the root of trees Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. 3

Spotted Palaenopsis Over Hummingbird, 2014, acrylic on linen on birch panel, 28 x 22 in., 71.1 x 55.9 cm 5

Arose in Winter, 2014, acrylic on linen on panel, 36 x 28 in., 91.4 x 71.1 cm 6

Dawn Dream, Ditched Dress, 2014, acrylic on linen on panel, 20 x 16 in., 50.8 x 40.6 cm 7

Sunset Over Dogâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dream, 2014, acrylic on linen on panel, 36 x 72 in., 91.4 x 182.9 cm 8

Fiery Orange Cymbidium, 2014, acrylic on linen on birch panel, 28 x 22 in., 71.1 x 55.9 cm Fiery Vanda Over Butterflies, 2014, acrylic on linen on birch panel, 72 x 36 in., 182.9 x 91.4 cm 10

Flowers on a Fuse: Phalaenopsis, 2014, acrylic on linen, 11 x 14 in., 27.9 x 35.6 cm 12

Flowers on a Fuse: Paphiopedilum, 2014, acrylic on linen, 14 x 11 in., 35.6 x 27.9 cm 13

Blossoms Over Bow Bridge, 2014, acrylic on linen on birch panel, 2 panels, each: 48 x 48 in., 121.9 x 121.9 cm 14

Fiery Phalaenopsis Over Butterfly 2014, acrylic on linen on birch panel, 28 1/4 x 22 1/8 in., 71.8 x 56.2 cm 16

Flowers on a Fuse: Vanda, 2014, acrylic on linen, 14 x 11 in., 35.6 x 27.9 cm 17

Orchid Over Passion Flower, 2014, acrylic on linen on birch panel, 28 x 22 in., 71.1 x 55.9 cm

L . C. A R M S T R O N G 1954 1982

Born in Humboldt, Tennessee BFA, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California 1987 BFA, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California The artist lives and works in New York, New York. AWARDS

1991

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc., New York, New York

1997 1995

Bravin Post Lee, New York, New York Marsha Mateyka Gallery, Washington, D.C. Making and Unmaking, University of Southern Florida Contemporary Museum, Tampa, Florida 1994 Phillippe Rizzo Gallery, Paris, France Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, California Bravin Post Lee, New York, New York 1993 John Post Lee Gallery, New York, New York Marsha Mateyka Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1992 Galerie Sophia Ungers, Cologne, Germany White Columns, New York, New York 1991

Galerie Sophia Ungers, Cologne, Germany

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2013 2009 2008

2007 2005 2003 2001 2000 1999 1998

L.C. Armstrong: Central Park Paintings, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York L.C. Armstrong: Flowerscapes, Marlborough Chelsea, New York, New York L.C. Armstrong: The Paradise Triptychs, Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida (through 2009) L.C. Armstrong: New Paintings, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York L.C. Armstrong - Paintings, Galerie H端bner, Frankfurt, Germany Marsha Mateyka Gallery, Washington, D.C. L.C. Armstrong: New Paintings, Postmasters Gallery, New York, New York Marsha Mateyka Gallery, Washington, D.C. Galerie H端bner, Frankfurt, Germany Angles Gallery, Santa Monica, California Postmasters Gallery, New York, New York L.C. Armstrong: Mall Flowers, Galerie H端bner, Frankfurt, Germany L.C. Armstrong: Paintings, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York

PRIVATE AND PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

ABN-AMRO Bank N.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida Fidelity Mutual Funds, Boston, Massachusetts Harvard Business School, The Schwartz Art Collection, Boston, Massachusetts Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri Morris Multimedia, Savannah, Georgia National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Neuberger Berman, New York, New York Progressive Art Collection, Cleveland, Ohio Sony Corporation, New York, New York The Body Shop, Littlehampton, West Sussex, England The Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Wellington Management, Boston, Massachusetts 19

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Important Works available by: Impressionists and Post-Impressionists; Twentieth-Century European Masters; German Expressionists; Post-War American Artists DESIGN /

Maeve O’Regan - Daniel McCann Bill Orcutt

P H OTO G R A P H Y /

EDITION OF 1200 P R I N T E D I N N E W YO R K B Y P R O J E C T

Cover: Blossoms Over Bow Bridge (detail), 2014, acrylic on linen on birch panel, 2 panels, each: 48 x 48 in., 121.9 x 121.9 cm 20

L . C. A R M S T R O N G R E C E N T PA I N T I N G S

S E P T E M B E R 1 6 - O C TO B E R 1 8 , 2 0 1 4

40 WEST 57TH STR EET N E W YO R K , N E W YO R K 1 0 0 1 9 | ( 2 1 2 ) 5 4 1 4 9 0 0 M A R L B O R O U G H G A L L E R Y.C O M