Join the David Kordansky Gallery in a celebration of artist Aubrey Mayer’s limited edition book, Aubrey Mayer with Jonas Wood 08-19-20, 09-01-20, 10-27-20, documenting Jonas Wood’s process of painting Hanalei Bay (2021), a work featured in his first Los Angeles exhibition in four years, “Plants and Animals” (on view through March 5).
This special limited edition publication includes 585 pages featuring photography of Wood in his studio and is presented in a custom box with printed imagery and hand-silkscreened text alongside a poster. Display copies will be available for viewing during the event. Please note that proof of full COVID-19 vaccination is required for entry for all visitors eligible for vaccination. Masks are required for all visitors in all indoor spaces at the gallery, regardless of vaccination status.
Jonas Wood, Shio with Three Dogs, 2020, oil and acrylic on canvas, 76 x 74 inches (193 x 188 cm), Photo: Marten Elder
The new paintings and works on paper on view in Plants and Animals were made over the last three years, and often are the results of evolving studies that go back even further than that. Wood has long turned to subjects that attract him for their personal relevance and formal idiosyncrasy. To make paintings, he works from photographs, drawings, and collages; in technical terms, his sources often combine several of these approaches as well as varying degrees of mediation, with Wood developing his ideas according to principles that are as informed by abstract notions of pattern and shape as they are by representational fidelity. Imagery from one work often appears in others, highlighting the ways in which Wood’s ideas go through these several phases of development.
The teeming detail that defines many works in Plants and Animals has visual as well as physical functions. Whether he is rendering images of densely patterned textiles, thick dog fur, or large-scale, foliage-packed landscapes, Wood produces each painted mark with remarkable clarity and intention. Density, therefore, becomes paradoxically responsible for imbuing the compositions with vibrating luminosity, even as it roots their presence in the material world. Wood gives every mark, no matter how small, an indelible feeling, character, and shape. He pays special attention to the viscosity and structure of the oil medium, which allows the eye to perceive these marks as carriers of color as well as instances of material invention in their own right.
On view: January 22, 2022 – March 5, 2022
What: “Black and Blue,” Rashid Johnson
Where: DAVID KORDANSKY GALLERY, 5130 W. Edgewood Pl., LA, 90019
When: Wednesday February 16, 2022, 10:00am – 12:00pm
Website: https://www.davidkordanskygallery.com
