ANDY MOSES RECENT PAINTINGS
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY BERGAMOT STATION ARTS CENTER 2525 MICHIGAN AVE., E-1 SANTA MONICA, CA 90404 P 310-453-0909 F 310-453-0908 www.williamturnergallery.com
Andy Moses at William Turner Gallery October 2010 by Shana Nys Dambrot
Andy Moses paintings never fail to astonish and seduce. Their prismatic, pearlescent surfaces, whose radiant filigrees are enhanced to dramatic effect by custom-made hyerparabolic canvases, these unearthly, Rococo confections are almost overpoweringly beautiful; in image and color mimicking nature while being in no way natural. But despite, or perhaps due to, their extreme loveliness and blurring of genre-boundaries, talking about them inevitably requires resorting to hybrid comparisons and qualified similes. His sweeping vistas operate on the viewer like the haunting, haunted Akashic landscapes of Friedrich or Turner: evocative, emotional, pictorial. But they are in fact, entirely abstract and modern: psychedelic, artificial, hyper-real. They are as stylized and attenuated as a Rococo ceiling mural (Moses harbors a secret love of Pontormo as a forefather of abstraction in art); but in their boundary-pushing use of cutting-edge painting materials, the most recent paintings are also quite futuristic. What’s required for transcribing a new visual language might just be a new arthistorical semiotic entirely. In a very real sense, Moses is deconstructing the elements of abstraction, ancestors to avant-garde, in order to build it anew, solving ages-old problems of art in new ways. “It’s a tightrope; it’s a paradox; it’s in between Pictorialism and non-figuration. Line is as much a concern for me as color, but there’s no drawing. They have that photodigital, high-def supersaturation of the palette; and as far as optics, there’s really nothing to compare them to. Something can’t be ‘more real’ can it?” Making the works entails a kind of wrangling of chaos; but as far as those astonishing, opalescent colors, Moses knows what he’s looking for. He mixes for a month then paints in a day. Is that process painting or its opposite? It’s just that after so much time in the lab, as it were, he can predict the physical and optical behavior of his media in relation to the laws of nature. More than a painterly technique, his composition resembles an orchestration of observed natural phenomena: gravity, viscosity, hydrodynamics. He manipulates thickness instead of brushwork, motion instead of gesture, to replicate both natural and transformational processes, forcing idea and matter into a conscious collaboration. Such is the texture of the new visual language Moses is evolving; reaching toward an essential way in which to convey the thrilling, vertiginous simultaneity of those moments in nature when the convergence of abstract aesthetic and emotional possibilities approaches the sublime.
Shadowland, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 36” x 72”
Zaveriskie, acrylic on concave panel, 42.5” x 90”
Tetiaroa, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 36” x 72”
Tetiaroa, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 36” x 72”
Aqaba, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 45”x 90”
Aqaba (Detail)
Uncompahgre, acrylic on concave canvas, 62” x 132”
Permian Basin, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 45” x 90”
Permian Basin (Detail)
Te Rangi, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 36” x 72”
Te Rangi (side view), acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 36” x 72”
Traverse, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 24” x 42”
Traverse (Detail)
Sinagua, acrylic on canvas, 20” x 28”
Maahunu, acrylic on canvas, 20” x 28”
Valley of the Moon, acrylic on canvas, 20” x 28”
Indigo Indigo, acrylic on canvas, 20” x 28”
Zoom, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 20”
Aquified, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 20”
Tularosa, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 20”
Omoo, acrylic on canvas, 16” x 20”
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY Andy Moses
Solo Exhibitions 2010 William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2009 Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2009 Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2008 Bjorn Ressle Gallery, New York, NY 2008 Sam Freeman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2008 Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2007 Jacob Karpio Gallery, San Jose, Costa Rica 2007 Galleri S.E Bergen, Norway 2007 Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2006 McClain Gallery, Houston, TX 2006 Patricia Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2005 Patricia Faure Galler,y Los Angeles, CA 2005 McClain Gallery, Houston, TX 2004 Virginia Miller Gallery, Coral Gables, FL 2004 Patricia Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2003 Off Main Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1998 Leonora Vega Gallery, New York, NY 1997 Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1996 Leonora Vega Gallery, New York, NY 1995 Leonora Vega Gallery, New York, NY 1988 Asher/Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1987 Annina Nosei Gallery, New York, NY 1981 California Institute of the Arts Valencia, CA Museum Exhibitions 2010 Contemporary Arts Center, Elements of Nature, New Orleans, LA 2009 Laguna Art Museum, Collecting California, Laguna Beach, CA 2009 Frederick R Weisman Museum of Art, Elements of Nature, Malibu, CA 2008 Laguna Art Museum, Recent Acquisitions, Laguna Beach, CA 2008 American Jewish University, Selections from the Frederick R Weisman Art, Bel Air, CA 2007 Frederick R Weisman Museum of Art, Made In California, Malibu, CA 2006 Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, LA Art Scene , Los Angeles, CA 2005 Riverside Art Museum, Flow, Riverside, CA 2003 Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA 1988 Newport Harbor Art Museum, Skeptical Beliefs, Newport Beach, CA 1987 Fondazione Michetti Rome, Italy Selected Group Exhibitions 2010 Nyehaus Gallery, Swell, New York, NY 2010 Peter Blake Gallery, Summer Group Show, Laguna Beach, CA 2010 William Turner Gallery, Material Matters, Santa Monica, CA 2009 Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Inagural Exhibition, Palm Desert, CA 2009 Arena 1 Gallery, Weekend, Santa Monica, CA 2009 Phantom Gallery, Surface of Space, Long Beach, CA
2008 Arts Manhattan, DNA Evolution, Manhattan Beach, CA 2008 MODAA, Liquid Light, Culver City, CA 2008 Peter Blake Gallery, 15 Years 15 Artists, Laguna Beach, CA 2008 Nuuanu Gallery, California Dreamin , Honolulu, HI 2008 Modern Masters Fine Art, Finish Fetish @ MMFA, Palm Desert, CA 2008 Pharmaka Gallery, Surface of Space, Los Angeles, CA 2007 dba Gallery 256, Liquid Light, Pomona, CA 2007 Peter Blake Gallery, West Coast Abstraction, Laguna Beach, CA 2007 Anita Shapolsky Gallery, Anita Shapolsky Group Show, New York, NY 2007 Arena 1 Gallery, Pink III, Santa Monica, CA 2006 Gallery C, LA Minimalism Today, Hermosa Beach, CA 2006 George Billis Gallery, All in the Family, Los Angeles, CA 2005 Patricia Faure Gallery, Pink, Los Angeles, CA 2005 Berman Turner Gallery, Flow, Los Angeles, CA 2004 Spike Gallery, New York, NY 2004 Cartelle Gallery, Pink, Los Angeles, CA 2004 Patricia Faure Gallery, White on White, Los Angeles, CA 2004 Atheneum, La Jolla, CA 2003 Gallery C, The Art of Paint, Hermosa Beach, CA 2003 Double Vision Gallery, Double Vision, Los Angeles, CA 2002 Anita Shapolsky Gallery, New Concepts, New York, NY 2002 SpaceProject, EleMental, Hollywood, CA 2002 Arts Manhattan, Close Proximity, Manhattan Beach, CA 1997 Nabi Gallery, To the End and Beyond, Sag Harbor, NY 1996 Millennium Gallery, East Hampton, NY 1994 Cambell Thiebaud Gallery, Lana International, San Francisco, CA 1993 Leonora Vega Gallery, New York, NY 1992 Newspace, Instincts of Intuition, Los Angeles, CA 1991 Hallwalls, Pleasure, Buffalo, NY 1990 Amy Lipton Gallery, New Metaphysical, New York, NY 1990 Marta Cervera Gallery, Matter and Memory, New York, NY 1988 Asher/Faure Gallery, Unstable Universe, Los Angeles, CA 1987 Annina Nosei Gallery, Spacial Effects, New York, NY 1986 Artist’s Space, Selections, New York, NY 1985 Pyramid Gallery, Es Photo, New York, NY Awards 1987 Premio Michetti, Fondazione Michetti Italy Personal History 1979 - 1982 California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA 1962 - Born, Los Angeles, CA
WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY BERGAMOT STATION ARTS CENTER 2525 MICHIGAN AVE., E-1 SANTA MONICA, CA 90404 P 310-453-0909 F 310-453-0908 www.williamturnergallery.com