June 15 - July 20, 2013 @ Young Art
"There was a time I call before
When all I knew was what I saw
The keeper of a major key
I lived in a town called liberty"
I became aware of the works of Stephen Aldahl a few years ago, when I was invited to his studio to preview some works that would later become part of his 2011 "A, F, K, Q & Z" show at Young Art. Young Art Gallery, sits on a small side street in Chinatown, LA, and owner Kate Hillseth curates some of the most understated shows in the city. It's the sort of space you might walk past for years, before becoming aware of its presence. Aldahl's latest works on canvas have a similar sort of suddenness. His earlier works hinted at these larger beautiful abstractions, which now stand tall, slender, and quietly unfolding. Their presence calling to mind Hockney and Gallace, and other pastoral painters that chased light with steady determination and free hands. A breakthrough of a show. - David John
"For Club Mood Swing, Aldahl presents a group of new paintings on door-shaped canvases accompanied by an installation. The door, a practical structure designed for a body to enter or exit while also possessing the symbolic weight of a passageway between worlds, in this case imposes an immediate obstruction as the images portrayed in Aldahl's paintings seem to extend horizontally beyond the confines of the canvas. Amorphous forms of subdued color create scenes of disorienting pastoral landscapes, bodies colliding, and architectural structures against uncertain surroundings. Most traces of painterly expression have been suppressed and while these surreal pictorial compositions move toward representation, their final image remains suspended. Vaguely alluding to larger narratives the way a mural would illustrate great histories or epic sagas the paintings fail to intimate any story."
Young Art: Chinatown
418 Bamboo Lane Unit B,
Los Angeles, CA 90012
"But there's a full moon risin'
Let's go dancin' in the light
We know where the music's playin'
Let's go out and feel the night."
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