Santa Monica, CA - William Turner Gallery is pleased to present Vapor Wave, a solo exhibition by Jimi Gleason,  opening April 5 and running through May 31, 2025.

Vapor Wave is Jimi Gleason’s most ambitious body of work to date. Utilizing a rich vocabulary of materials and styles, Gleason has built up gossamer thin layers of iridescent paint to create a series of paintings that are engagingly enigmatic. They confirm an artist at the height of his talent, confidently exploring the power of nuance and understated expression.

In this new series, vaporous ribbons of color play across lustrous surfaces that morph and shift as one engages them. The effect elicits a sense of unexpected revelry - much like the kind one might experience gazing across a lake in a predawn moment, captivated by the growing light as it caresses and undulates across the water’s surface.

And like water, Gleason’s surfaces are quietly in motion, their iridescent paints subtly shifting in hue as light plays across them. In some of the canvases, sharp diagonals bifurcate the compositions, providing dramatic structural rifts to these ethereal surfaces. The effect is a hypnotic and prismatic visual structure, where light, color and form intersect in ever-changing play. Gleason has a uniquely personal connection to water: he grew up surfing, and took up rowing in college. When he talks about his work he also talks about, “the way the light looks underwater,” and early mornings rowing when the calm water reflects the sky at dawn. 

Like many artists working in the Light and Space arena, materials and their catalytic visual effects are essential to their work. In Gleason’s case, he employs silver nitrate and pearlescent paints to activate his surfaces, which catch and reflect surrounding light, further engaging one’s sense of the surrounding space. Gleason is a leader in that next generation of Southern California artists to work in the Light and Space ethos, carrying the dialogue forward and using his work of art to explore the phenomenological properties of perception.

Born in Newport Beach, CA, Gleason received his BA from UC Berkeley in 1985. He studied printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute before relocating to New York City, where he worked as a photo assistant and technician. Returning to California, Gleason was employed in the studio of Ed Moses for five years. Combining the disparate technical and compositional skills developed during his exposure to printmaking, photography and mixed media painting, Gleason is now the subject of considerable curatorial and critical attention. 

Gleason’s work is exhibited in significant public institutions, including the Hammer Museum, the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation, the Long Beach Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Tucson Museum of Art.The artist’s paintings are actively collected by a growing number of major public and private collections around the world.

The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation & William Turner Gallery look forward to your joining us for a special evening celebrating Frieze Art Fair and Casper’s Brindle’s stunning solo exhibition, Numina, with cocktails, music & hors d’oeuvres, Friday, February 21, 2025, 5:30 - 7:30 PM at William Turner Gallery. 

The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation is renowned for their exceptional collection and preservation of art by some of the 20th Century’s most beloved artists. Currently, under the direction of Billie Milam Weisman, the Foundation continues to make the collection available through loans to museums worldwide, docent tours at the Los Angeles estate, exhibitions in public-art venues, and the funding of several art museums.

CASPER BRINDLE NUMINA
&
FRIEZE ART FAIR

With Cocktails, Music & Hors D’oeuvres
5:30 - 7:30 PM
Friday, February 21, 2025

At

WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave, E1
Santa Monica, CA 90404

RSVP TO:

turnergallery@gmail.com
T 310-453-0909

JANUARY 25 - MARCH 22, 2025

OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, January 25, 5-8PM

Numina (ˈnu mɪn, ˈnyu-)  n. pl:  divine or supernatural power or presence, especially as associated with a particular place or object

Santa Monica, CA - William Turner Gallery is pleased to present Numina, Casper Brindle’s first solo exhibition at the gallery in four years, excitingly delayed by numerous national and international exhibitions, including an extensive exhibition in 2022 at The Luckman Gallery, Cal State LA. Numinawill run from January 18 - March 15, 2025.

Numina, presents two bodies of work, Light Glyphs and Veils, each of which involve dramatic investigations into light, color and the fluid, ever shifting nature of perception.  The exhibition ranges from painting to sculpture, and exemplifies Brindle’s restless experimentation and evolving modes of expression. The works are poetic, sensual and spatially dynamic. Utilizing automotive paints and pigmented acrylic, Brindle has created works that reflect and diffuse light in ways that are nuanced and engaging. 

Brindle’s Light Glyph’s, are luminescent and mercurial sculptures, constantly shifting in hue as the viewer moves around them. Absorbing and reflecting light, they have a meditative quality that calls one’s attention to the moment, and the subtle shifts within that moment. The word Light, in the series’ title, references perception and the power of light to illuminate, to inspire, and to guide. The glowing vertical bands in the center are the Glyphs, which act as mantra-like focal points for the viewer. The Glyphs also reference ancient, pre-linguistic  modes of communication, where symbols or marks were carved in relief to convey ideas in lieu of words. This exhibition introduces new extensions to the series, where, in addition to single works, the Light Glyphs are  presented now in various groupings, which foster a rhythmic, jazz-like interaction to one’s experience. 

The Veils introduce Brindle’s newest series, where diaphanous washes of color float on elegantly suspended sheets of acrylic. Painted in layers from the back of these sleek, crystalline surfaces, the paintings are bold and captivating. For Brindle, they are an abstracted homage to those moments of awe, where we find ourselves in nature’s thrall. Unsurprisingly, Brindle cites his love of nature, and the ocean in particular, as major sources of inspiration, where the artist has spent innumerable hours studying the sensory effects of light across its constantly changing surfaces.

Numina also presents Brindle at the dynamic leading edge of a dialogue, between artwork and viewer, that began in Southern California in the late 60s and early 70s and became known as Light & Space. The shift that began it all was as subtle as it was profound. The idea and purpose of the artwork shifted; from object to catalyst; from looking “at" the artwork to our experience of “perceiving” the artwork. Artist’s like Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Helen Pashgian, Fred Eversley, and many others, began to explore this notion of how their work could heighten one’s experience and perception.

For Casper Brindle, that initial sensibility has been embraced with an adventurous spirit, leading in boldly new and exciting directions.

Born in Toronto in 1968, Brindle’s family relocated to Los Angeles in 1974 from the United Kingdom, and he has called the city home ever since. By Brindle's early twenties he moved to the burgeoning art scene in Venice CA, where many of LA’s cutting edge artists had studios. It was there that the artist became immersed in the ideas of Light & Space, with which he has worked ever since.

Casper Brindle’s work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally. His work is held in numerous prominent private and museum collections including the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, The Laguna Art Museum, the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, and the Morningside College Collection in Sioux City, IA.

Phenomena features a range of work, from representational depictions to abstract expressions,  celebrating the power and visual splendor of the natural world as a resource for creative expression and investigation.  For centuries, artists have pictorially documented their observational studies of natural phenomena and the world around us. Manuscripts such as Natural History (77 CE) by Pliny the Elder and The Book of Miracles (1552), chronicled divine wonders and horrors in illustrations, often serving as warnings of the consequences of human deeds upon their environment and the mysteries of the natural world. Utilizing these extraordinary codexes as a genesis for Phenomena, the exhibition explores related themes.

In the 16th century, “cabinets of curiosities” or “wonder rooms” in Europe served as spaces to showcase collections curated for the artistic and scientific interests of their patrons and served as precursors to museums. With missions to both amuse and enlighten, “cabinets of curiosities” functioned as sources for entertainment and educational resources, thus intersecting art and science. In the late 19th century, scientific inquiry shifted from museums to university laboratories bifurcating the two discourses. Phenomena merges the two disciplines as they once had been integrated in the cabinets of curiosities.

Artists in Phenomena: Charles Arnoldi, Natalie Arnoldi, Ryland Arnoldi, Kelsey Brookes, Alex Couwenberg, Franco Defrancesca, Lawrence Gipe, David Lloyd, Ed Moses, Jeff Overlie, Melanie Pullen, Jennifer Wolf

You are invited to Cal State LA Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery
ART TALK:

AURAS
Mark Steven Greenfield
curated by Mika M. Cho
collaborated with the William Turner Gallery

Next Saturday, September 28, from 2 to 4 pm, exhibit “AURAS”
Art Talk between artist Mark Steven Greenfield
and art critic, curator, and author Shana Nys Dambrot

Art Talk: Saturday, September 28, 2024, 2 - 4 pm
Exhibition: August 19 – October 22, 2024

RONALD H. SILVERMAN FINE ARTS GALLERY
Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery
California State University, Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032

The Ronald H. Silverman Gallery is Located in the Fine Arts Building (Building 9). Parking is available in Structure C
https://www.calstatela.edu/map | www.calstatela.edu/visitorparking

Shana Nys Dambrot is an art critic, curator, and author based in Downtown LA. Formerly the Arts Editor at the L.A. Weekly, she is the co-founder of 13ThingsLA, and a contributor to the Village Voice, Flaunt, Artillery, and other culture publications. She studied Art History at Vassar College, curates and juries exhibitions, writes prolifically for exhibition catalogs and monographic publications, and speaks at galleries, schools, and cultural institutions nationally. She is the recipient of the Rabkin Prize for Art Criticism, the Mozaik Art Writers Prize (twice), and the LA Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Critic of the Year award (twice). Her oneiric novella Zen Psychosis (Griffith Moon) was published in 2020. 

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. 

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.

LIGHT MATTER

PST ART: ART & SCIENCE COLLIDE
September 14 - November 2, 2024

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 14, 4-8PM   

William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, California - is pleased to present Light Matter, the first of two exhibitions in partnership with the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide, which explores the intersections and influences between art and science.

Light Matter explores the influences of scientific research on artistic process and intention, and builds on a collaboration that began with LACMA’s innovative Art & Technology program, a collaboration between artists and industry that ran from the late 60s to early 70s. For a number of artists, this unique program led, unexpectedly, to a significant new way seeing and thinking about the purpose of a work of art. Enter Light & Space in Southern California, where the emphasis shifted from looking at art as “object”, to art as “experience”.

Artists in Light Matter continue to expand on this notion, experimenting with the possibilities of their materials, often through scientific research and innovation, to achieve heightened visual effects that engage the viewer in the wonder of the phenomenology of perception. They utilize materials and approaches that inspire the viewer to reflect - not only on “what” they are perceiving, but “how”. Many of the pieces require the viewer to interact with the works in unexpected ways - either by encouraging unusually active movement around, or stillness before, their works. The act of viewing engages the senses and heightens our sense of perception.

Light Matter includes work by Dawn Arrowsmith, Larry Bell, Casper Brindle, Shingo Francis, Jimi Gleason, Eric Johnson, Jay Mark Johnson, Peter Lodato, Andy Moses, and Roland Reiss.