Philippa Blair – Attivare

Steven Hampton – Greatest Hits

April 21 – May 19, 2007


Opening Reception: Saturday, April 21st, 6 – 10pm.

                  

Philippa Blair, Radical Moves, 36" x 72" (Diptyche), Oil on canvas, 2004

Philippa Blair reveals the wisdom of her travels and cross-cultural experiences through enlivened, vivacious works on canvas.  These paintings continue to examine Philippa’s fascination with collisions of the classical and contemporary between mythology and the high-tech information age as well as the hybridization of language and society.

Steven Hampton exhibits precise and bold canvasses in concept as well as execution in his debut exhibition at Lawrence Asher Gallery.  Recent years spent in the University studio have established a deep understanding of past influences that now serve as motivation to explore and provide the confidence to realize his interpretation and expression.  

 

Please join us for the opening reception of these two wonderful artists on Saturday, April 21st, 6 – 10 pm.  Lawrence Asher Gallery is located at 5820 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, across the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and adjacent to the Craft and Folk Art Museum. Free parking is available on Wilshire Blvd. and behind 5858 Wilshire Boulevard.  Enter on Stanley Ave.  For more information, please call 323.935.9100


Steven Hampton, Crossover, 60" x 48", Spray Paint & Oil on canvas, 2006

The Artists

Philippa Blair

"Since arriving in Los Angeles from New Zealand in 1995 I have been developing a visual language relating to the challenges of a new environment in the Pacific Rim.


My explorations of travel, soundtracks, scores, movements, ecologies and topographies feed me.


Starting from line into gesture, building forms, structures, actions, changing directions and accelerations. Both organically and hi tech inspired. Building a new home and studio in Venice, CA. Dramatic juxtapositions of roads and intersections, time-based as in music."

Painting as a spectacular event liable to change, flow (with) interruptions and disruptions.  Reflecting and reordering the chaos of the ‘mind’s eye’ is a way of looking at today’s world in crisis.  The punch of optimism and delight is still there in an increasingly surreal existence.  The new paintings continue to draw the line with dynamic painted structures and forms defiant of stylistic categorization. Flux and change become a constant. The end results are not always predictable! - Philippa Blair, Venice, CA 2005.

Philippa received a Diploma of Fine Arts in Painting, from the Ilam School of Fine Art, Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand in 1967, BA studies in English (1968 Massey University, Palmerston North) and Art History (1973- 1974 Auckland University) as well as a Teaching Diploma in Fine Arts from Auckland Teachers College in 1976. Philippa was a visiting artist at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena from 1995 – 2001 as well as a visiting artist at Otis College of Art and Design in 2000 in their graduate programmes.


Steve Hampton

Growing up in the 80s, my days were spent watching action movies. The explosion that I saw as an intoxicating background for Rambo, The Terminator, and Die Hard progressively became a more common visual in everyday media. What was initially appreciated as a rarity created by special effects became an aesthetic experience with political and social consequences.

     

I experienced the work of the Abstract Expressionists in a similar way. At first, the amazing material effects of "Action Painting" struck me. The immediate overall sensation of a Pollock or Rothko would shock and awe while overwhelming the senses. For me, titles such as The Deep, Full Fathom Five, or The Omen and the Eagle reflected grandeur in naming similar to Die Harder or First Blood. The muscled brushstroke of a Franz Kline or DeKooning had the same grit and determination of any number of heroic action icons played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  

In both cases, however, after the initial burst of visual pleasure, the smoke would clear, allowing for reflection on political consequences. Why weren’t there any female action heroes? Why were only white men allowed fame in front of the explosion? What aesthetic did the Abstract Expressionists develop that reflected American culture? Was it indeed a visual experience of immediacy reflecting a culture's preoccupation with "an arena in which to act"?

My intention in Greatest Hits is to add the explosion into the repertoire of abstract mark making, placing the explosion into compositional strategies and alongside marks pioneered by Action and Pop painters. I offer the motif of the explosion as an alternative to the immediate and transcendent overall composition sought after by the Abstract Expressionists. The use of the explosion as a motif alongside the AbEx marks presents the political and social ideals of that time in the light of today’s political and social climate. The result is a highly-charged experience that creates an unstable balance between politicized ideas and pure sensation.

 

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Lawrence Asher Gallery  |  5820 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 100  |  Los Angeles, CA  90036
Tel.: 323.935.9100  |  Fax: 323.964.7100