Lenders to the Exhibition Valentino D. Carlotti Anand and Erica Desai Michael and Diane Reafsnyder Carole Server and Oliver Frankel The Saitman Family Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects Patrick Wilson Special thanks to Susanne Vielmetter and Ariel Pittman of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects for their assistance with this exhibition, as well as Miles McEnery of Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York and Elisabeth Wingate, New York. Cover: Love Birds, 2013 Acrylic on canvas 41 x 37 inches Collection of Anand and Erica Desai Photo by Robert Wedemeyer A branch of mathematics, geometry (from the ancient Greek geo (“earth”) and metron (“measurement”) deals with the measurement and properties of lines, shapes, and angles and the relative position of forms within space. In various artistic movements of the last 100 years, elements of geometry, though drawn from the field of mathematics, have become iconic images in art making. In the early part of the 20th century, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Kasimir Malevich (1878- 1935), and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) developed an unprecedented and radical approach to creating art by exploring a vocabulary of simple geometric forms—rectangles, triangles, squares, and lines. They rejected recognizable or representational imagery in favor of abstract, geometric compositions to address universal truths and utopian ideas. This tradition carried forth, expanded, and transformed over the course of the 20th century in the work of many artists, including Joseph Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, Ad Reinhardt, and Peter Halley continues into the present with innovative approaches to the genre. Wolf, 2012 30 x 72 inches Collection of Michael and Diane Reafsnyder Photo by Robert Wedemeyer Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects Photo credit: Robert Wedemeyer This exhibition features a selection of outstanding paintings by Los Angeles artist Patrick Wilson, whose inventive exploration of geometric form builds on the rich tradition of geometric abstraction as it evolved over the 20th century, while also drawing on the artistic legacy of the Hard Edged Painting and the Light and Space Movements that came to the fore in California during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s.1 Wilson creates his compositions by allowing his ideas to germinate and evolve slowly. Contrary to most artists working within the tradition of geometric abstraction, he deliberately avoids the use of sketches or computer renderings, preferring instead to respond and react to each shape and color as they are added. As a result, the paintings achieve a kind of compositional spontaneity that leans closer to the organic than the architectural. Wilson employs common workmanlike tools to move paint around. Masking tape is used to outline each rectangle on the canvas, and then with a drywall trowel he applies, or rather “pulls,” layer upon subsequent layer of acrylic paint over each masked section in a slow process that evolves over recurrent applications of tape and pigment. The artist also uses rollers in other areas of his paintings to achieve contrasts in values and hues. In one sense, as Wilson has commented, he almost “builds” his paint surfaces rather than “painting” them. Working on up to six paintings simultaneously at various levels of development, Wilson activates his canvases with sophisticated calibrations, both in the positioning of his geometric forms and in the subtle variations of color and texture, so that each painting becomes “a constantly shifting landscape, alive with movement and ambiguity.”2 Superimposing what seem like disarmingly simple geometric forms on top of, beside, or inside each other, Wilson creates rich overlapping planes in complex modular sequences that achieve mesmerizing visual effects. In these polished, masterfully executed paintings, shimmering colors that refract and seemingly radiate combine with the optical illusion of receding and advancing planes. In this respect, Wilson’s work seems connected to the work of Josef Albers, the artist, theoretician, and teacher renowned for his Homage to the Square series (1950-1975). In this extensive body of work, Albers explored chromatic and perceptual interactions within a mathematically determined format of three to four squares, nested within one another. The intent of Wilson’s work, however, goes beyond Albers’ investigation of perception and color. Certainly Wilson’s paintings are about line, form, and color and their perceptual effects, but they take us down another more sensual, immediate, and “in the moment” path. Steak Night, 2013 Acrylic on canvas Six parts, 17 x 17 inches each Collection of the Saitman Family Photo by Robert Wedemeyer For example, the artists’ titles, a result of free association, refer to living, and everyday activities of the moment, such as cooking or dining. Titles of the paintings Steak Night (2013), or Cilantro and Onions (2013), reflect whatever the artist happened to be thinking about while painting, and reference a delight in the quotidian pleasures of life. Likewise, the sensual experience of Wilson’s work is especially pertinent. The translucent layers, lustrous colors, and subtle but underlying dynamism of his compositions are simply gorgeous, and pleasurable to experience. In fact, for Wilson pleasure is an integral and essential aspect of his work, as is beauty. He has said: “I do know what my understanding of beauty is and it has nothing to do with political posturing, cultural variation, or art- world banter: it’s something far more universal, and its undeniable—the ocean, a flying bird, a perfect tree, a tender embrace. That is the kind of beauty that I pursue in my paintings: the type that makes me feel ecstatic…”3 Apart from the sheer beauty and sensual delight of Wilson’s paintings, it is the definite yet indefinite expanses within Wilson’s square and rectilinear shapes that From top: lure us in. It’s a rich, placeless realm. One of Hot Wings, 2013 overlapping and intersecting dimensions; Acrylic on canvas one of worlds within worlds. One that deals 72 x 67 inches with structure, order, and the complexities Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles of spatial dynamics. One infused with an Projects elusive dichotomy in which geometric forms The Clown, 2012 convey stability—but within them and Acrylic on canvas behind them are subtly shifting perceptual 72 x 67 inches horizons. Unstable. Transitory. Inchoate. Collection of Valentino D. Carlotti Photos by Robert Wedemeyer But present. In this sense, Wilson’s work has been said to embody the complexity and aura of life in the digital age. That the work has a decidedly technological edge with lines that travel across the canvas like the groves of a circuit board, and that the light emanating from his paintings is reminiscent of the constantly shifting backlit play of luminous rectangles on our computer screens.4 The strength of Wilson’s work, and why it is so engaging, is that it presents us with such sensual beauty while alluding to the shifting, ever– evolving and increasingly unanchored dimensions of life in the 21st century. Margo Ann Crutchfield Curator at Large Cilantro and Onions, 2013 Acrylic on canvas 41 x 37 inches Collection of Carole Server & Oliver Frankel Photo by Robert Wedemeyer Notes 1Hard-edged painting refers to the work of a group of abstract painters from California characterized by forms with sharp, clear outlines, and clearly delineated areas of color. Among this group were Karl Benjamin (1925-2012) and Frederick Hammersley (1919-2009), with whom Patrick Wilson studied. 2The California Light and Space movement emerged in the 1960s with artists such as John McCracken, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, and James Turrell, whose work focused on perception and phenomena with light and space as predominant materials. 3Larkin, Carina. “Patrick Wilson: Color Space.” The Brooklyn Rail. 2 Mar, 2012. Print. 4Patrick Wilson, quoted in an interview with Sarah C. Bancroft, published in the 2010 California Biennial Catalogue, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California. Works in the Exhibition Cross Multiply, 2014 Acrylic on canvas 66 x 57 inches Collection of the artist Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects Hot Wings, 2013 Acrylic on canvas 72 x 67 inches Collection of the artist Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects Steak Night, 2013 Acrylic on canvas Six canvases, 17 x 17 inches each Collection of the Saitman Family Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects The Clown, 2012 Acrylic on canvas 72 x 67 inches Collection of Valentino D. Carlotti New York, NY Cilantro and Onions, 2013 Acrylic on canvas 41 x 37 inches Collection of Carole Server and Oliver Frankel Livingston, NJ Love Birds, 2013 Acrylic on canvas 41 x 37 inches Collection of Anand and Erica Desai Wolf, 2012 30 x 72 inches Collection of Michael and Diane Reafsnyder Los Angeles, CA Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects About the Artist Born in Redding, California (1970) Lives and works in Los Angeles Wilson received an MFA from Claremont Graduate School (1995) and a BA from the University of California, Davis (1993). Recent exhibitions include Patrick Wilson: Pull at the University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach; the 2010 California Biennial at the Orange Country Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California; Electric Mudd at the Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, Texas; Keeping it Straight: Right Angles and Hard Edges in Contemporary Southern California Art, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, California; and