• Today If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze that it made...

    Today

    If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

    so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

    that it made you want to throw

    open all the windows in the house

    and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

    indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

    a day when the cool brick paths

    and the garden bursting with peonies

    seemed so etched in sunlight

    that you felt like taking

    a hammer to the glass paperweight

    on the living room end table,

    releasing the inhabitants

    from their snow-covered cottage

    so they could walk out,

    holding hands and squinting

    into this larger dome of blue and white,

    well, today is just that kind of day.

    -Billy Collins

     

  • Max Jansons (b. 1974, New York, NY) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. His painting practice primarily focuses on...
     

    Max Jansons (b. 1974, New York, NY) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. His painting practice primarily focuses on the art historical genre of still-life, which he explores through a combination of representational and abstract imagery. Jansons’ exquisite brushwork and deft handling of paint are defining features of his work, and evident in Persimmon. 

    With Persimmon, Jansons combines flowers and persimmon fruits, which serve as a colorful framing device within the composition. Persimmons add both structure and color to the painting, but also significant meaning, as they are associated with good luck and glad tidings. Jansons' palette, a mixture of light blues, yellows, pinks, and orange, is reminiscent of the flowers, growth, and fecundity that we associate with springtime, and Persimmon radiates with a vibrant and dynamic energy that fills the entire canvas. The work's crescendo is Jansons' noteworthy brushwork, which is an elemental facet of his practice. Swirls, curlicues, and texture further activate the surface of the painting, resulting in a bright and buoyant composition that dances off the picture plane.

     

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  • ektor garcia (b. 1985, Red Bluff, CA) lives and works nomadically and maintains a studio in Mexico City, Mexico. garcia’s...

    ektor garcia (b. 1985, Red Bluff, CA) lives and works nomadically and maintains a studio in Mexico City, Mexico. garcia’s practice hinges on precise, repetitive gestures and patterns. Laboriously handcrafted and technically rendered objects result in small and large-scale compositions, singular forms, and expansive installations comprised of multiple handmade and collected pieces from the artist’s archive. Patterns are intrinsic to garcia’s works, providing structural strength to the sculptures while offering a counter to the fragility and vulnerability of the materials therein.     

    empezar, meaning "to begin" or "to start" in Spanish, combines hand-crafted unglazed porcelain roses into a spiral with neither a definitive beginning or end. The density of the installation belies the fragility of each individual element. 

    garcia often creates forms inspired by nature -- butterflies, shells, roses -- that hold significant meaning. The rose, for example, is a recognized symbol of love, beauty, and also mysticism, and is a well-known signifier of feelings of affection and deep admiration. In garcia's hands, the rose signals to these well-worn tropes while opening onto other possibilities and nodes for interpretation. 

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  • Karen Barbour (b. 1956, San Francisco, CA) lives and works in Inverness, California. Her maximalist paintings and drawings are populated...

    Karen Barbour (b. 1956, San Francisco, CA) lives and works in Inverness, California. Her maximalist paintings and drawings are populated by figures and imaginary landscapes comprised of bold colors and intricate passages made with an assortment of details. Barbour's works often include discrete passages of mixed media elements adhered to their surfaces, adding texture and depth. Consistently mining her own oeuvre by reworking, revising, and layering imagery, Barbour develops paintings over a long period of time with a distinctively intuitive approach. This method of working allows her to prioritize a slow accumulation of color and forms through repetitive gestures. The accumulative surfaces of her works are evidentiary, highlighting the entanglement of their own transformations with that of the evolution of the artist.

    Comprised of painted passages and collaged elements, the structures in Tower Landscape read as simultaneously as buildings as well as flowers and trees. Brimming with a fusion of colors and patterns, Tower Landscape radiates with the visual intensity we associate with a blooming field or the bustle of a city whereby our senses are heightened and acutely attuned to the sights and sounds around us.

     

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