Craft In America on PBS - Inspiration Episode - Mark Steven Greenfield

Mark Steven Greenfield talks about Simon Rodia and the Watts Towers in the Craft In America Inspiration episode on PBS. Also, please find the attached bonus video where Craft in America looks at the production of Mark’s piece Califia. Califia can be currently viewed at the gallery.

Its television series Craft in America includes more than 20 hour-long episodes. It is shown on PBS, and is a winner of the Peabody Award. In 2020, Craft in America was awarded the inaugural Decorative Arts Trust Prize for Excellence and Innovation, in connection with its plan to create a video dictionary of decorative arts tools, techniques, and materials.

Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angelino, and son of a Tuskegee Airman, which led to spending the first part of his life abroad, living on military bases from Taiwan to Germany, until returning to LA at the age of ten. In high school Greenfield studied with revered Los Angeles artist, John T Riddle. Riddle quickly noted Greenfield’s talent, but saw that he was vulnerable to the influences and dangers confronting black youth at the time. Riddle remarked, "You could be a pretty good artist....if you live that long.” This got Greenfield’s attention and set him on the path that would define the course of his life. 

Greenfield went on to study with Charles White, at Otis Art Institute, and received his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University Los Angeles in 1987. Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States most notably with a comprehensive survey exhibition at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles in 2014, and in 2002 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in Thailand; at Art 1307 in Naples, Italy; the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, China; 1333 Arts, Tokyo, Japan; and the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea. 

Mark Steven Greenfield, Califia, 2022, gold leaf and acrylic on wood panel, 30" x 56”

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD

Greenfield is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006) Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA 2012), The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012), the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil (2013) and the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016). He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 and California State University Los Angeles in 2016. 

From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects.

Opening Tonight, Saturday, April 8, 5-8pm - Jay Mark Johnson: Íslenskir Fossar

Jay Mark Johnson
Íslenskir Fossar

April 8 - May 27, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 8, 5-8PM

“Utilizing sophisticated exposure techniques…Johnson has been touring the world’s nature reserves to produce these critical images and many others like them. The images prove just how serious he is.” - Ingeborg Ruthe, Berliner Zeitung

SELJALANDFOSS #3 (Rangàrthing Ekstra, Iceland), 2021, Archival pigment on paper mounted on aluminum with UV laminate, 43” x 120” frameless Edition of 3; 25” x 64” frameless Editions of 9

Santa Monica, CA - The William Turner Gallery is pleased to present the fourth solo exhibition of Los Angeles-based, multi-disciplinary artist Jay Mark Johnson. Ten spectacular large format images of waterfalls and geysers are selected from the most recent photographic artworks in the artist’s two-decades-long production of paradigm-shifting timeline imagery.

The artworks presented in ÍSLENSKIR FOSSAR were produced in Iceland in October of 2021 towards the end of global travel restrictions. Traversing the stark volcanic landscape, Johnson focused on the atmospheric turbulence of rushing waters and freezing air emanating from the region’s waterfalls and geysers, capturing the dramatic interplay of the spectacular geological events within the seasonal low-raking “golden hour” light. In the Icelandic language, the word “foss” means waterfall—with  roots in the Nordic word for “force”. In his exploration of the possibilities for timeline photography, Johnson has repeatedly turned his attentions to marveling at the forces of nature, specifically the reciprocal physical interactions of light, water and atmosphere found in coastal waves and inland waterfalls.

FAXAFOSS #2 (Faxi, Iceland), 2021, Archival pigment on paper mounted on aluminum with UV laminate, 60” x 60” framed Edition of 3, 30” x 30” framed Edition of 9

Johnson has always been fascinated at how the transmorphisms of his slit scan photographs—because they are both recognizable and strange—challenge the viewer’s expectations, forcing recognition of both the truthfulness and validity of alternative perspectives. Over the years he has worked to exploit both the refraction and diffraction of light waves as they encounter objects out in the environment and within the camera itself. Working close to the billowing plumes of waterfalls he plays with the naturally occurring displays of banded light waves visible in rainbow-like color patterns. He “paints” with the incoming color spectrum emanating from the outer reaches of the waterfalls, from the water as it crashes against rocks, and from the space between the falls and the shear rock face behind. Recorded within his inventive temporal delineations, the resulting artworks are as startling and unimaginable as they are eye-popping and poetic.

Each image in the exhibition bears distinct site specific features. For SELJALANDSFOSS #3, Johnson carried his camera equipment into a giant cavern behind a monolithic, 200 foot high cascade. Turning to look back outward, he captured an ephemeral curtain—a delicate and translucent waterwall—through which one magically views a wide horizontal stretch of the distant azure sky. In SKÓGAFOSS, a rainbow materializes through the viscous spray at the heel of the cataract while the volcanic substrate immediately behind the falls is refracted into muted color striations. In GEYSER #1, an abrupt eruption of a massive thermogenic jet sprays its sulphured-green waters skyward and then, vanishing quickly, dissipates into the low-hanging overcast fog. Two of the images in the show were produced at Stewart Falls in Sundance, Utah while another was recorded on the Big Island in Hawaii.

FAXAFOSS #3 (Faxi, Iceland), 2021, Archival pigment on paper mounted on aluminum with UV laminate, 40” x 106” frameless Edition of 3; 31” x 81” framed Edition of 9

Held by prestigious private institutions and public collections throughout the U.S. and Europe, Johnson’s work has been exhibited and collected by the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution, Art Institute of Chicago, Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the Phoenix Art Museum, the Langen Foundation and Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe.                

Johnson was born in 1955 in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. Since 1996 Johnson has resided intermittently in Paris, Antwerp, Rome and rural Italy.  He maintains studios in both the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles and Uptown New Orleans where he draws, paints, sculpts and writes.

#jaymarkjohnson

Julian Lennon: Atmospheria Catalog Now Available Digitally & in Print

William Turner Gallery is please to present the catalog for Julian Lennon’s exhibition Atmospheria. The catalog is available to view using the button below and a print version (36 pages fully illustrated) is available by contacting the gallery.

Lennon’s photographs serve as allegorical vehicles in this time of heightened awareness for our planet’s peril.In surveilling these ever-changing skies, Atmospheria celebrates the beauty of these vaporous vistas to inspire us to better revere and protect them.

The collection is suffused with a sense of wonder and awe at the majesty of natural phenomena. Each image simultaneously evokes feelings of sweeping grandeur and indefinable yearning. Luminary, shape-shifting clouds, distinguished by the combings and crests of light and shadow, speak with gravitas and elegance.

A portion of the proceeds from Atmospheria will benefit The White Feather Foundation (TWFF), Lennon’s nonprofit organization. Since its inception in 2007, TWFF has championed conservation projects worldwide.The foundation raises funds for Indigenous, environmental, education, health and clean water projects around the world. TWFF has saved native lands from being taken from Indigenous groups; brought clean water to developing communities; provided girls with educational scholarships; helped furnish and build schools in underprivileged areas; brought mobile ambulances to remote villages; assisted with disaster relief and brought meaningful social justice films to light.

Frederick R. Weisman Foundation Acquires Lambretta by Alex Couwenberg

Alex Couwenberg, Lambretta, 2022 acrylic & spray on canvas 66" x 84"

William Turner Gallery is pleased to announce the acquisition of Lambretta by the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation from Alex Couwenberg’s recent exhibition SuperGlide.

In this new series of visually exquisite works, Alex Couwenberg utilizes a jazz-like ensemble of color, line and texture to create lyrically engaging, deftly complex compositions. These multi-layered canvases captivate the viewer with the precision of their virtuosic execution, but they are at heart wonderful improvisations - reductive and additive processes drawing upon his intuitive and spontaneous reactions in the moment. Couwenberg simultaneously builds upon and excavates the surfaces of his paintings, constructing an abstract archaeology of his own deeply personal, semiotic patois. Born and raised in Southern California, Couwenberg’s work expresses the seemingly contradictory sensibilities of the region - the love of nature, and its variegated, open-spaced color and light, and, conversely, the embrace of an urban architecture, in all of its physical and cultural density.

A graduate of The Art Center College of Design and The Claremont Graduate School, Couwenberg worked under the guidance of Karl Benjamin, one of the leading figures in the Southern California-base school of Hard-edge geometric abstraction. Beginning in the mid to late 60s, Benjamin was instrumental in developing a highly refined painting style, process, and philosophy of tightly ruled shapes and edges. Concurrently, other artists in LA began working with industrial materials to create highly refined surfaces, termed “Finish Fetish”, and investigating alternative mediums and technological advances. Both of these influences coalesce into Couwenberg’s post-postmodern vernacular, characterized by its layered formal, material, and textured surfaces.

Alex Couwenberg’s paintings have been shown in several solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. His work can be found in numerous public, private, corporate, and museum collections around the world. Museum acquisitions include the Crocker Museum of Art, the Daum Museum in Missouri, Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Laguna Art Museum, Long Beach Museum of Art, and Nushi-Umeda, Tokyo to name a few. In 2007, Couwenberg was awarded the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for his achievements in painting and in 2012 was featured as the subject of Los Angeles based filmmaker Eric Minh Swenson’s project titled “The Making Of La Fonda,” which focuses on the artist's life and studio practices.

SHINGO FRANCIS + FONDATION D'ENTERPRISE HERMÉS TOKYO

Le Forum is an exhibition space housed in a glass-brick building designed by Renzo Piano. Flooded with natural light that forms an integral part of its identity, it is an oasis of contemplation inviting visitors to discover contemporary art in the heart of Tokyo’s dynamic Ginza neighbourhood. Directed by exhibition curator Reiko Setsuda, Le Forum offers an international programme bringing Japanese artists together with others from all over the world.

What is “interference”? Under this title, the first exhibition of 2023 invites the public to find answers through experience. Four artists explore our perceptions through the effects on the body of stimuli such as light, vibrations or soundwaves. Through stripped-back aesthetics, each of these artists highlights the subtle variations caused by the interferences to which our bodies are subjected in everyday life. Visitors are invited to contemplate the nature of perception through deeply felt sensations both physical and unconscious. The title, “Interference”, is borrowed from a series of paintings by artist Shingo Francis (b. 1969, United States): containing pigments that interfere with light, the colours of these canvases shift according to the viewer’s position. Nearby, an installation by Susanna Fritscher (b. 1960, Austria) immerses the viewer in a sensory experience of vibrations and pulsations beyond the frequencies that we are capable of hearing. Finally, Bruno Botella (b. 1976, France) presents pieces that stimulate our subconscious perception through tactile sensation, while Aiko Miyanaga (b. 1976, Japan) invites visitors to embark on a cosmic journey – the ultimate sensation, transcending time and space – through a tea ceremony shared online.

Alex Couwenberg: SuperGlide - Exhibition Video

View the exhibition video for Alex Couwenberg SuperGlide. To view the digital exhibition catalog please press the button below.

Alex Couwenberg: SuperGlide - Exhibition Catalog Now Available

In this new series of visually exquisite works, Alex Couwenberg utilizes a jazz-like ensemble of color, line and texture to create lyrically engaging, deftly complex compositions. These multi-layered canvases captivate the viewer with the precision of their virtuosic execution, but they are at heart wonderful improvisations - reductive and additive processes drawing upon his intuitive and spontaneous reactions in the moment. Couwenberg simultaneously builds upon and excavates the surfaces of his paintings, constructing an abstract archaeology of his own deeply personal, semiotic patois. Born and raised in Southern California, Couwenberg’s work expresses the seemingly contradictory sensibilities of the region - the love of nature, and its variegated, open-spaced color and light, and, conversely, the embrace of an urban architecture, in all of its physical and cultural density.

A graduate of The Art Center College of Design and The Claremont Graduate School, Couwenberg worked under the guidance of Karl Benjamin, one of the leading figures in the Southern California-base school of Hard-edge geometric abstraction. Beginning in the mid to late 60s, Benjamin was instrumental in developing a highly refined painting style, process, and philosophy of tightly ruled shapes and edges. Concurrently, other artists in LA began working with industrial materials to create highly refined surfaces, termed “Finish Fetish”, and investigating alternative mediums and technological advances. Both of these influences coalesce into Couwenberg’s post-postmodern vernacular, characterized by its layered formal, material, and textured surfaces.

A synthesis of styles and processes particular to the artist's experience materialize on the canvas to construct the poetics of his investigations. Masking off portions of the painting in his process recalls the batik technique of wax-resist dying and geometric patterning used in his father’s birthplace of Java, Indonesia, a former Dutch colony. His parents met in the Netherlands and immigrated to the U.S., making Couwenberg a first-generation Eurasian American. This synthesis of cultures manifests in his pristine Neo-Plast lines, which disrupt the rigid grid of De Stijl to formulate topsy-turvy cartographies embedded with encoded sign- systems. The alternating black-and-white banding alludes to “Invasion Stripes” used by Allied forces to define friendly aircrafts on their fuselages and wings during World War II but can also refer to Chevron stripes. The industrial spray gun is employed to create diaphanous atmospheric effects, where the foreground and background oscillate, while pearlescent paints shimmer on the surface. Couwenberg lacerates striations on portions of the architectonic compositions with tools such as brooms, all the while revealing intersections between the complex networks of positive and negative spaces. These circuits are comparable to the labyrinthine freeways Angeleno’s surmount and the dextrous, freestyle choreographies skaters wreath. Couwenberg orchestrates self-portraits that intimate a collective unconscious unveiled through material and process, ultimately converting them into cultural artifacts.

Chasing Pono, 2022, acrylic and spray on canvas, 72“ x 66“

Couwenberg’s paintings have been shown in several solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. His work can be found in numerous public, private, corporate, and museum collections around the world. Museum acquisitions include the Crocker Museum of Art, the Daum Museum in Missouri, Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Laguna Art Museum, Long Beach Museum of Art, and Nushi-Umeda, Tokyo to name a few. In 2007, Couwenberg was awarded the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for his achievements in painting and in 2012 was featured as the subject of Los Angeles based filmmaker Eric Minh Swenson’s project titled “The Making Of La Fonda,” which focuses on the artist's life and studio practices.

Alex Couwenberg Videos by EMS

Two Alex Couwenberg Videos from EMS…

ABOVE: View a video of Couwenberg’s exhibition “SuperGlide” currently on view at the William Turner Gallery through February 11th, 2023. 

BELOW: Alex Cowenberg was featured as the subject of Los Angeles based filmmaker Eric Minh Swenson’s project titled “The Making Of La Fonda,” which focuses on the artist's process and studio practices. Learn more here.

HYPERMODALITY - Casper Brindle @ THE LUCKMAN - CAL STATE LA

Casper Brindle, Light Glyph, Light Glyph VF, 2022, pigmented acrylics, 44 x 74 x 12 in.

Curated by Mika Cho
On view September 29 through November 19, 2022
The Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA

Artist Reception:
Saturday, October 8, 2022 at 5:00 pm

With great pleasure, I invite you to the exhibition “Hypermodality” which highlights the selected work of Casper Brindle. The exhibition opens on September 29, 2022, at the Luckman Gallery in the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA. Casper Brindle is well known and has long been admired for his aesthetical experiments on color, light, and form. The varied structural arrangements of his compositions, partly reminiscent of the Light and Space movement, transcend the circadian and engender metaphors that unfold various Interpretative and ontological values. The simplicity of Brindle’s work is impressive as it gives rise to mystery - a mystery that can only be called sublime.

Mika Cho, September 2022

“Brindle’s art turns our attention to its minimalist composition as much as despite its luminous, disembodied color and pristine, machine-tooled surfaces. He does not set our eyes afloat in unvariegated light, but thwarts such an optical free fall, deliberately compromising the “ganzfeld” – the surrounding light ambience – with strongly posited horizontal and/or vertical devices. These structural devices encourage our eyes to apprehend the visual field either as a recessional space or as a surface structure. Brindle does not set up an ongoing dialogue between vertical and horizontal works, or even between the verticals and the horizontals occurring in the same works; rather, he proposes the physical and metaphysical presence of each from the outset as contrasting discourses. This is not Light & Space; it is Light WITH Space.”

Peter Frank, September 2022

The Luckman Gallery | Public Viewing Hours
Wednesday through Saturday
11:00 am until 5:00 pm

The Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA
5151 State University Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90032
(323) 343-6600
www.luckmanarts.org

ARTIST RECEPTION - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2022, 5 - 8 pm

SEPTEMBER 29 – NOVEMBER 19, 2022

 

ARTILLERY MAGAZINE - RACIAL RECKONING Mark Steven Greenfield Illuminates the Black Experience - By Clayton Campbell

ON THE EDGE BRINGS QUINN COLLECTION TO ARMENIAN MUSEUM - Andy Moses, Ed Moses, Charles Arnoldi Featured

ON THE EDGE

Los Angeles Art 1970s - 1990s from the Joan & Jack Quinn Family Collection

INTRODUCTION

Joan Agajanian Quinn and her late husband Jack represent a key moment in the history of contemporary art, as Los Angeles came to symbolize an innovative and prolific brand of creative freedom. Few individuals have left such an indelible mark on the artistic landscape of Southern California than Joan and Jack Quinn. Joan found herself both muse and promoter of several Southern California artists, while Jack used his skills as a prominent and influential attorney to help an array of emerging artists and their dealers navigate the worlds of law and business.

This exhibition highlights the couple’s collection primarily amassed from the 1970s to 1990s, a period rich in significance and defined by a unique spirit of anti-conformity, a play of new materials and a celebration of light and the California cool ethos. Much of the work was collected directly from the artists and has never changed hands or been shown publicly. Works in the exhibition will explore themes such as Ferus Group “Cool School,” Light and Space, Minimalism, Chicano Art, Pop Art, and international artists and influences.

PRESS FOR THE EXHIBITION

BOSTON GLOBE
NPR
BOSTON PUBLIC RADIO
ARTSCOPE
ART NEW ENGLAND
W MAGAZINE
HYPERALLERGIC
WBZ
MIRROR SPECTATOR
WATERTOWN TV SPOT

ANDY MOSES - Three Concurrent Museum Exhibitions - ShoutOut LA

Gallery artist ANDY MOSES is currently in shows at Laguna Art Museum, Ronald H. Silverman Gallery at CalState LA, and the Armenian Museum of America in Boston.

Shout Out LA sits down with the busy artist to discuss his recent work and multiple museum exhibitions.

Be sure to check out all of these exhibitions and stop by the gallery to see an installation of a breathtaking new large scale painting installed in the gallery offices. We will be open this Saturday for the FALL OPEN and a talk by gallery artist LAWRENCE GIPE from 3-4PM.

TEDx Wan Chai - Featuring Artist Simon Birch

Simon Birch Speaking at TEDx Wan Chai

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. As a renowned artist in Hong Kong, Simon Birch takes us through the turning points in his life, highlighting how he was able to turn challenges into a series of adventures shaped by creativity.

Simon Birch is a renowned UK-born artist based in Hong Kong, recognised for his kinetic oil-on-canvas paintings and for his ventures into multimedia projects integrating paintings with film, installations, sculptures and performances.

Born in Brighton in 1974 and of Armenian descent, Simon taught himself how to paint at a very early age, before making a name for himself in Hong Kong, and more recently venturing into the international art scene with solo shows in Beijing, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Miami, and Singapore, as well as group shows at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the Haunch of Venison in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. Notable large-scale projects have included the 20,000 square feet multimedia installations HOPE & GLORY: A Conceptual Circus (2010), and Daydreaming With…The Hong Kong Edition (2012) at the ArtisTree in Hong Kong’s TaiKoo Place.

ART NOW LA / SIMON BIRCH and The Da Vinci Questionnaire

The artist at 14th Factory Hong Kong, photo by Scott Sporleder

British-born, Hong Kong-based Simon Birch, who has been awarded the prestigious Louis Vuitton Asian Art Prize and the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, and whose work has encompassed sculpture, painting, photography, performance, video and large-scale multi-media installation projections – often guiding the viewer through narrative sequences – plumbs his own psychological depths only to discover what makes him love work and life.

What historical art figure would you like to have lunch with and why? Caravaggio…drunken adventures, brawling, insulting the beast, the guy carried a sword and cut some guys balls off..all while painting some of the most brilliant works in human history….would be a colorful lunch.

What did you purchase with the proceeds from your first sale? A 1980 Ferrari Mondial. Sounds extravagant but was barely running and only cost about $10k. I eventually rolled it on purpose for a video installation for my project in LA, The 14th Factory. The stunt team, cameras, lighting, etc, was far more expensive than the car. The car became a video installation and 300 sculptures cut from the wreckage, and a photography work by Stanley Wong. Far more valuable than the original car and also shared as art for all.

What words or phrases do you overuse? That’s what she said!

Coachwhip SuperCharger, 49"x100” & Shutdown Danger Pink, 78.7" x 78.7"

How do you know when a work is finished? No work is ever finished, it’s just a stepping stone that brings you closer and closer to making something decent, I hope. Still working towards making good art. As one progresses, you learn, and realise how little you know, and how you lean on all of art history, consciously or not, especially painting but now, more so for me, concept driven work. So you feel at once excited to create something new, and defeated because it’s all been done. One of my first impactful criticisms was that my work is stylized and derivative. I agree but then what isn’t? Working on it. But also making the art I am compelled to make, while being more and more self, and historically, aware.

When and where were you happiest? Strangely, one of my happiest times was when I was closest to death. Something about clarity of mission. I was diagnosed with terminal cancer, but woke up the next day knowing I could crush it and received overwhelming and rapid support. I invited anyone I thought was a real friend to dinner to announce my situation (yes, all about me!) and asked for help. Only 1 of those 20 people walked away. Seeing all these people help with research, shopping and delivering supplies, taking me to hospital, working together on a survival plan….though it was life or death, it showed me who my real friends are, then and forever since. I’m happy to have passed on my process, network, advice, to many people ever since and ever more.

He Willed Himself Into Passivity, Became the Passenger Behind Her Eyes, 72”x72”

What is your most treasured possession? I possess nothing, so it’s not so relevant. Maybe my answer, cliche as it is, friends and memories. I’ve had a very rich life to be grateful for, but also lost so much over many years, had to sacrifice so much to try to achieve my goals – apartment, cars, artworks, vacations, all gone….in pursuit of something truly great. My new project, that is still very much in the balance.

Where is your ideal escape destination? Oh, that’s easy, escape to see my godson in Australia, my goddaughter in Denmark, my mum in London and a few other jokers along the way.

What’s the worst survival job you’ve ever had? I was a bouncer at a rough club in the Midlands in the late 80’s. Seeing blood many nights, and occasionally my own, was a clear message to get away from that environment. Even my brother got stabbed, lost 5 pints of blood and should have died. He’s fine now. Other friends, not fine. Second place was working in a factory on the production line, same thing every day, just awful. Bring on the robots.

What TV series from your youth best describes your approach to life? We were poor, so TV access was rare. I’d say more influential was my addiction to comic books. The Dark Knight, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Sandman….outsider heroes. All of those influences have made me try to be and do good and also obsess about drawing and painting the human figure.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? A lot of things! But all the things I would change are repercussions from my upbringing, and if I could change that, I would have gotten decent education, mentorship and opportunity.

 What is your most treasured memory? Too many. Hiking through Iceland. Surfing waves of consequence with my BFF. Freediving to the darkest depths. Making a good painting. Falling in love. Maybe one of the nicest was, after recovering, helping a friend who was desperately ill, and seeing him survive. I still claim I saved his life when we bump into each other but the truth is, it was all him.
What makes you smile? Grease, the movie. Queen at Live Aid, Bill Hicks, David Cross, Prince, School of Rock, Ricky Gervais, Fawlty Towers, Public Enemy, Star Wars….and a million other movies and TV shows….my dog Frankenstein, all my friends constantly mocking me.

 What makes you cry? Everything. The more you know, the more empathy and clarity you have, the more you realize there are endless real-world problems that could be so easily fixed. But we are far from utopia and corporations, media and governments have all the power and seem corruptly intertwined.

What is your go-to drink when you toast to a sale? Old Fashioned. Sale or not.

After an all-nighter, what’s your breakfast of champions? I don’t do all-nighters, too old for that, we are all into Brazilian Jiu jitsu, so we eat well, rest, which works for mind and body. Plus my current project is all absorbing so there’s no days off.

Who inspires you? Boyan Slat.

Money Folder, 86.6" x 86.6"

What’s your best quality? Maybe rushing into the fray to help a stranger. Quite recklessly but it’s been a recurring thing in my life, being confronted with an urgent crisis in the street and just diving in.

What’s your biggest flaw? Maybe same as previous question.

 What is your current state of mind? Utterly stressed. My last project was The 14th Factory in Los Angeles. I nearly went bankrupt, and ended up in hospital afterwards from exhaustion. It was well loved, so I’ve been encouraged to develop the next one ever since. I was close to delivering project 2 in London then COVID hit.

I retreated to Hong Kong and looked at space here and went through many ups and downs. Now I have a huge site, 250,000 square feet, and have raised some capital but not enough. Even with an exceptional team and concept, I’m struggling to find the final funding to make it happen. As I write this it may all come together in the next two weeks, or it’s canceled and I have to start from zero yet again.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? My ability to use the phrase, ‘That’s what she said,’ in every conversation.

Mark Steven Greenfield Catalog Signing & Talk - THIS SATURDAY!

Photograph By Tony Pinto

Join Mark Steven Greenfield & William Turner for a conversation & walkthrough of Greenfield's current exhibition, HALO.

SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2022

3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
3:00 Refreshments
3:30 Walk through begins 4:15 Catalog signing

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD 

Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angelino, and son of a Tuskegee Airman, which led to spending the first part of his life abroad, living on military bases from Taiwan to Germany, until returning to LA at the age of ten. In high school Greenfield studied with revered Los Angeles artist, John T Riddle. Riddle quickly noted Greenfield’s talent, but saw that he was vulnerable to the influences and dangers confronting black youth at the time.  Riddle remarked, "You could be a pretty good artist....if you live that long.” This got Greenfield’s attention and set him on the path that would define the course of his life. 

Greenfield went on to study with Charles White, at Otis Art Institute, and received his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University Los Angeles in 1987. 

This year, Greenfield’s work was the subject of a 20-Year retrospective at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, CA, from which the The Crocker Museum of art acquired a piece for their permanent collection. 

Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States most notably with a comprehensive survey exhibition at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles in 2014, and in 2002 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in Thailand; at Art 1307 in Naples, Italy; the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, China; 1333 Arts, Tokyo, Japan; and the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea. 

Greenfield is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006) Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA 2012), The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012), the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil (2013) , the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016) and Loghaven artist residency in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2021. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 and California State University Los Angeles in 2016. 

From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE) and the Harpo Foundation. 

HALO Exhibition Catalog Now Available

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD
HALO

April 30 - July 9, 2022

Mark Steven Greenfield: “I am reimagining what a saint is.”

- Mark Steven Greenfield speaking about the legendary, mythic, and often little known, black figures featured in HALO, on view now through July 9, 2022 at William Turner Gallery, in Santa Monica,CA. 
This online exhibition catalog for HALO, and forthcoming printed first edition, features the artist’s lustrous paintings and the illuminating background stories  which accompany each portrait.

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To order an advance copy of the print edition of HALO contact the gallery at 310-453-0909 or info@williamturnergallery.com

MARK STEVEN GREENFIELD 

Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angelino, and son of a Tuskegee Airman, which led to spending the first part of his life abroad, living on military bases from Taiwan to Germany, until returning to LA at the age of ten. In high school Greenfield studied with revered Los Angeles artist, John T Riddle. Riddle quickly noted Greenfield’s talent, but saw that he was vulnerable to the influences and dangers confronting black youth at the time.  Riddle remarked, "You could be a pretty good artist....if you live that long.” This got Greenfield’s attention and set him on the path that would define the course of his life. 

Greenfield went on to study with Charles White, at Otis Art Institute, and received his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education in 1973 from California State University, Long Beach and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University Los Angeles in 1987. 

This year, Greenfield’s work was the subject of a 20-Year retrospective at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, CA, from which the The Crocker Museum of art acquired a piece for their permanent collection. 

Greenfield’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States most notably with a comprehensive survey exhibition at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles in 2014, and in 2002 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Chiang Mai Art Museum in Thailand; at Art 1307 in Naples, Italy; the Blue Roof Museum in Chengdu, China; 1333 Arts, Tokyo, Japan; and the Gang Dong Art Center in Seoul, South Korea. 

Greenfield is a recipient of the L.A. Artcore Crystal Award (2006) Los Angeles Artist Laboratory Fellowship Grant (2011), the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA 2012), The California Community Foundation Artist Fellowship (2012), the Instituto Sacatar Artist Residency Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil (2013) , the McColl Center for Art + Innovation Residency in Charlotte, North Carolina (2016) and Loghaven artist residency in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2021. He was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 2013 and California State University Los Angeles in 2016. 

From 1993-2011, Greenfield worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs as director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and later as director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Artists Development Association, the Armory Center for the Arts, the Black Creative Professionals Association, the Watts Village Theatre Company and was past president of the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825. He currently teaches drawing and design at Los Angeles City College, and serves on the board of Side Street Projects, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE) and the Harpo Foundation. 

Commemorating Ed Moses

Today we commemorate the art and life of the late Ed Moses. Born on April 9, 1926, Ed Moses rose to become an important figure in Post War art. Moses had his first exhibition at the legendary Ferus Gallery in 1958 while still a graduate student at UCLA. In 1996 Ed had a career retrospective at MOCA and most recently an exhibition of works on paper from the 60’s & 70’s at the LA County Museum of Art. Ed’s work is in the collection of countless important international institutions and was featured in the 2008 documentary The Cool School.

A constant innovator and experimenter Ed tested the boundaries of materials and processes delivering exhibitions up to the year of his passing that were often completely unique from past production, a feat of creativity rarely witnessed in the history of art.

Ed was a storyteller both in paint and the spoken word. Years later those stories live on, through his survived contemporaries, his dealers, his friends and his family. He was a passionate and fearless innovator, an intellectual, a gifted orator and a phenomenal artist. His story has only begun to be written and we are honored at the gallery to have been a part of it.

ANDY MOSES, Reflecting The Dawn - Currently on View at the Laguna Art Museum

Andy Moses, Reflecting the Dawn, Acrylic on Canvas over concave wood panel, 40x96 inches

Sky Space Time Change is an exhibition that examines artworks by more than 40 California artists that look up, look out and look across the Southern California skies in contemplation of the interconnections between physical, environmental and cultural systems. The exhibition takes viewers through the colorful landscapes of Conrad Buff, Fernand Lungren, and Anna Althea Hills, to the muted visions of Roger Kuntz and Florence Arnold, and into the ethereal realm of Andy Moses, DeWain Valentine, Craig Kauffman and Larry Bell. The exhibition of paintings, prints, sculpture, and photography from Laguna Art Museum’s permanent collection has been assembled by Laguna Art Museum’s 2024 Getty Pacific Standard Time guest curators Sharrissa Iqbal and Michael Duncan.

CHROMESTHESIA Catalog Now Available for Online Viewing

William Turner Gallery is pleased to present Curtis Ripley’s most recent investigations into abstraction Chromesthesia. The exhibit is on view February 19, through April 16, 2022.

How does one visually qualify the sound of color, or conversely, the color of sound? Chromesthesia is a neurological phenomenon experienced in the synthesis of binary sensorial modalities (synesthesia) where sound and color converge into a joint perception. In his painterly choreographies, Ripley interprets this ephemeral phenomena where light dances and shadows play in concert, whilst color is given musical agency. He often cites music as a departure point in his process, evidenced in the working titles. The canvases are gestural expressions of events conducted into orchestrations of lyrical harmony as the eye traverses through fields of color.

Activating the canvas’ surface through visceral gesticulations, he employs a vast repertoire of painterly techniques to amplify the dynamism of the viscous medium. In the tradition of the Old Master’s, veil’s of glazed oils are washed upon washes whilst opaque pigments dissolve into gauzy vapors, simultaneously revealing and obfuscating. One’s gaze is drawn in-and-out as a lens’ aperture renders depth-of-field. The transient nature of the corporeal world is described through lingering films of atmospheric haze interlacing with solid volumes rendered in highly saturated pigments; this tension is achieved through varied processes of application and deletion. Vibrations are deftly strung from his palette as colors rhapsodize in polychrome hums and variegated tremors. Expressionistic drips dapple indiscriminately here, automatic splatters chance to rupture spontaneously there… calligraphic strokes animatedly reach to articulate into attenuated arabesques. Rhythmically the paintings pulse into sublimely syncopated interventions of color, light, space and motion.

Boundless forms are liberated into ambiguous spatial fields through intuitive placement. Improvisatory bits of miscellaneous paraphernalia - such as scraps of sheet music - are occasionally embedded in the paintings, imbuing a whimsical element of surprise. Void of academic hierarchies, he refrains from privileging space, favoring the spontaneity of improvisational arrangements. Resistant to strict interpretation, the paintings are nonobjective distillations informed by Ripley’s relationship with his environment. Inevitably there are loose associations employing a pictorial vocabulary, not limited to: sound, ambient light, landscape, seasons, sky, and architecture which are then dematerialized into symphonic arrangements of reductive forms and undulating color harmonies.

Breaking from traditional modes where the canvas is detached from its audience, these are rather, environments intended to engulf the spectator. Ripley instinctively unifies the subjective phenomena of color and sound into atmospheric poems intended to actively translate into an intimate experience uniquely spirited by individual perception.

Curtis Ripley was born in 1949 in Lubbock, Texas. He attended the University of the Americas, México D.F. in 1969; Texas Tech University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1971; and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1975. Ripley served as a lecturer in 1975 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; an Assistant Professor at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana from 1975 to 1977; an Associate Professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia from 1977 to 1985; an Associate Professor at California State University, San Bernardino from 1985 to 1986; and a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach from 1986 to 1987. His awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Artists Fellowship, 1979, and Juror’s Award, Zeichnung Heute, Kunsthalle, Nurnberg in 1983. He has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States, has participated in a wide-variety of group exhibitions, and has works in several collections such as those of the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, California; J.P. Morgan Chase, New York; Federal Reserve Bank, Richmond VA; HSBC Private Bank, New York; Chemical Bank, New York City; Yokohama Royal Park Hotel, Japan; and The Ambassador Hotel, Taipei. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

OPENING THIS SATURDAY 4-7PM - WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY

CURTIS RIPLEY
CHROMESTHESIA
Opening Reception: Saturday February 19, 4-7pm

William Turner Gallery is pleased to present Curtis Ripley’s most recent investigations into abstraction Chromesthesia. The exhibit is on view February 19, through April 16, 2022.

How does one visually qualify the sound of color, or conversely, the color of sound? Chromesthesia is a neurological phenomenon experienced in the synthesis of binary sensorial modalities (synesthesia) where sound and color converge into a joint perception. In his painterly choreographies, Ripley interprets this ephemeral phenomena where light dances and shadows play in concert, whilst color is given musical agency. He often cites music as a departure point in his process, evidenced in the working titles. The canvases are gestural expressions of events conducted into orchestrations of lyrical harmony as the eye traverses through fields of color.

Activating the canvas’ surface through visceral gesticulations, he employs a vast repertoire of painterly techniques to amplify the dynamism of the viscous medium. In the tradition of the Old Master’s, veil’s of glazed oils are washed upon washes whilst opaque pigments dissolve into gauzy vapors, simultaneously revealing and obfuscating. One’s gaze is drawn in-and-out as a lens’ aperture renders depth-of-field. The transient nature of the corporeal world is described through lingering films of atmospheric haze interlacing with solid volumes rendered in highly saturated pigments; this tension is achieved through varied processes of application and deletion. Vibrations are deftly strung from his palette as colors rhapsodize in polychrome hums and variegated tremors. Expressionistic drips dapple indiscriminately here, automatic splatters chance to rupture spontaneously there… calligraphic strokes animatedly reach to articulate into attenuated arabesques. Rhythmically the paintings pulse into sublimely syncopated interventions of color, light, space and motion.

Boundless forms are liberated into ambiguous spatial fields through intuitive placement. Improvisatory bits of miscellaneous paraphernalia - such as scraps of sheet music - are occasionally embedded in the paintings, imbuing a whimsical element of surprise. Void of academic hierarchies, he refrains from privileging space, favoring the spontaneity of improvisational arrangements. Resistant to strict interpretation, the paintings are nonobjective distillations informed by Ripley’s relationship with his environment. Inevitably there are loose associations employing a pictorial vocabulary, not limited to: sound, ambient light, landscape, seasons, sky, and architecture which are then dematerialized into symphonic arrangements of reductive forms and undulating color harmonies.

Breaking from traditional modes where the canvas is detached from its audience, these are rather, environments intended to engulf the spectator. Ripley instinctively unifies the subjective phenomena of color and sound into atmospheric poems intended to actively translate into an intimate experience uniquely spirited by individual perception.

Curtis Ripley was born in 1949 in Lubbock, Texas. He attended the University of the Americas, México D.F. in 1969; Texas Tech University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1971; and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1975. Ripley served as a lecturer in 1975 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; an Assistant Professor at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana from 1975 to 1977; an Associate Professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia from 1977 to 1985; an Associate Professor at California State University, San Bernardino from 1985 to 1986; and a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach from 1986 to 1987. His awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Artists Fellowship, 1979, and Juror’s Award, Zeichnung Heute, Kunsthalle, Nurnberg in 1983. He has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States, has participated in a wide-variety of group exhibitions, and has works in several collections such as those of the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, California; J.P. Morgan Chase, New York; Federal Reserve Bank, Richmond VA; HSBC Private Bank, New York; Chemical Bank, New York City; Yokohama Royal Park Hotel, Japan; and The Ambassador Hotel, Taipei. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles, California.