the influences of Southern Californian sky, ocean and atmospheric conditions."
For those in California interested in DeWain Valentine,
now is the time to enter space..
1. LAMA now, Lot 220: DeWain Valentine "Circle" , circa 1970, LAMA Auction Oct 9
2. From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column September 13, 2011–March 11, 2012
J. Paul Getty Museum, West Pavilion
3. Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface Sep 25, 2011–Jan 22, 2012 at MCASD La Jolla.. "In the 1960s and ’70s, light became a primary medium for a loosely-affiliated group of artists working in Los Angeles."
"Influenced by the color, light and space of the Southern Californian environment, a number of artists, including Valentine with studios in the vicinity of Venice Beach, became a generation who helped define the contemporary art subsequently produced in Los Angeles. Car customizing and automobile lacquers made their way into their work and they pioneered the use of industrial materials such as cast acrylic, Plexiglas, polyester resin and glass in their artworks.
With these often highly toxic materials, they created sleek forms with pristine surfaces. Valentine’s variously scaled, lens-like translucent sculptures embody a careful balance of form, an unexpected palette of hues with varying translucency. Defying their own weighted physicality through their transparent qualities to seem amorphous and weightless, an illusion of defying gravity in their balance is also created. The circular forms on view are freestanding, balanced with a wider, heavier base to stabilize them. Created slightly earlier and related to the Circle’s on view, was the remarkable and physically imposing 174” wide 5,000-pound cast resin sculpture, Large Wall, 1968. The machine-like smooth surfaces, suspending clear color in space evidence the influences of Southern Californian sky, ocean and atmospheric conditions. Valentine’s concave and convex lenses inevitably integrate into any environment warping perspectives rather than simply circumventing visibility."
"The interest in the phenomenology of light and its effects connects Valentine to the Light and Space and L.A. Glass and Plastic movements, in which he was an integral, leading and influential exponent, sharing an underlying interest in capturing and manipulating light to present variable perceptions. He is currently working with glass and acrylics, stone, bronze and steel."
text taken from here......
via ACE los angeles......
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