TAG Gallery (at Bergamot Station, SM) p
resents three new exhibitions featuring the art of Christo Brock, Elizabeth Szymczak, and Kamil Vojnar.
Save the Date – March 7, for an art talk at 3pm.
About TAG Gallery – Established in 1993 as a not-for-profit corporation, TAG Gallery is a member-owned community of approximately forty artists. Through the physical gallery in Santa Monica’s landmark Bergamot Station as well as lectures from exhibiting and visiting artists, TAG Gallery has become a valuable resource for launching the careers of both emerging and mid-career artists based in the greater Los Angeles area.
“Unwonted Eye,” Christo Brock
In his latest work, Brock continues to explore unwonted (unusual, unexpected) imagery from everyday life. His eye ranges from the languid rolling ocean in “Ripples #3” to the macroscopic “Tortured Orange Line” and the enhanced fantastical forest-scape of “Christmas Trees”. In all his imagery, printed exclusively on metal, Brock shows the unique vision that has characterized his work.
See image: Christo Brock, Tortured Orange Line, Photo on Metal, 20 x 30 in.
It’s this metal surface that provides a medium to complete Brock’s abstraction of image. These photographs don’t merely sit on the metal as a photograph – they seem to live in the metal. His images shimmer and glisten, and the metal often adds a welcomed element of abstraction to his work. At times, Brock plays with the metal, as if daring to evoke the molecules to speak. Dew Drops become glowing orbs, waves become undulating stripes of blue, trees become lines of color and depth.
“Choreographed Color,” Elizabeth Szymczak
“Contemporary figure painting has become, for the most part, too stabile. People sit, stand, or lie around the house or garden, stolid and inert, their poses without animation, often they seem as if they were stuffed. By not moving, they often fail to move us: the loss of animation has meant a loss to painting, in the range of both expression and subject matter,” wrote art historian Gerald Ackerman in his paper, “On Motion in Art”.
Elizabeth Szymczak captures the dynami
sm of motion, whilst maintaining an exemplary level of realism. She paints out of a love for dance and the expressing of emotion through movement. Szymczak’s paintings render what the figures are attempting to evoke.
See image: Elizabeth Szymczak, Dream, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in.
As her latest body of work, Choreographed Color is a more positive collection. Szymczak concentration is centered on the blend of surrealism and realism. As in life, she is striving to find the right balance between expression and approach.
“Just Pictures,” Kamil Vojnar
Just Pictures is anything but… JUST PICTURES. Its a desperate cry, … it’s a hand sticking out from the water, trying to grab to whatever, to anything, that is still true and real, in today’s fast-paced world. Vojnar himself pronounces his work to be above everything else, … about collisions … “Of yellowish nostalgia, melancholy, of our sepia tinted past. colliding with the cold, ultra LED HDTV plasma, retina display, uninspiring, robotic present.”
See image: Kamil Vojnar, From History of Aviation, mixed media on wood, 16 x 16 in.
Vojnar utilizes many paradoxical elements in his work. His pieces have a gritty, yet delicate and elegant feel. They are ethereal, yet remarkably tangible. The drips of paint, the layering of the image across numerous pieces of paper and the familiar elements and details in each piece (shoes, a sofa, a mirror, etc.) make the work part of our world. At the same time, central to the images are figures that are detached and untouchable. Like a muse or angels, they elude the viewer and perhaps the artist as well.
Artist Talk takes place March 7, 3:00 pm.
On view: February 28 – March 21, 2015
What: Artist reception
Where: TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Avenue D3, SM 90404
When: March 7th, 3:00 pm ART TALK
Phone: (310) 829-9556
Website: www.taggallery.net
