The Lawrence Asher Gallery in Los Angeles presents two exhibitions Philippa Blair - Tracks, and Jayme Odgers – Watercolor Portraits from October 17 – November 11, 2009. The richly textured, expressive and gestural works of Philippa Blair summon the zeitgeist of Abstract Expressionists. Jayme Odgers' watercolor portraits signal a departure from his typographic works, in which words are both the subject and object. 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 .
Philippa Blair's paintings do not have a fixed point of view thus allowing us to read the work any way we like, side to side or top to bottom, as we attempt to discern one surface layer from the next. It is beneath this layering of paint and aggressive brush strokes that a narrative of urbanity reveals itself. Like Blair's work, the richly textured and grafittied walls of Los Angeles are sites of performance whose narrative is always unfolding.
With Jayme Odgers' portraits however, honest renderings of photographs taken by the artist of his friends, the object becomes the subject. The portraits are demonstrative of a high skill set. The sophisticated use of watercolors paired with a steady hand and astute sensitivity to expression reveal an exacting portrait of the artist.
Jayme Odgers - I paint portraits with watercolor as much for philosophical reasons as for technical ones.
Aesthetically as well as physically, a portrait done in oil is an enduring testament to the person which will outlast the life span of the sitter. Besides capturing a particular likeness, the paint rests on top of the surface. Properly cared for, it's durable; and there's an implied monumentality, a sense of gravitas that you can't achieve with watercolor. You can also touch-up a portrait in oil. Try doing that with one done in watercolor. Oil allows for all sorts of effects to be used for any number of expressive purposes. You can add texture to the portrait, make changes at will. Watercolor is an irreversible one-shot idea.
When I paint a portrait in watercolor, though, I want to capture a particular moment of vulnerability that I perceive within the sitter. The paper on which it's painted is more fragile than the canvas on which another artist would daub oil. There's a life cycle of the work itself that roughly parallels that of the sitter. Watercolor allows me to merge the color with the paper, to simulate simultaneous moods or even the actual flow of blood beneath the skin. The paper, in fact, acts as skin, and the result is more tattoo-like.
Though their features are rendered as clearly as necessary, my subjects are placed against nondistinct, suggestive, maybe timeless, backgrounds. Their faces may be expressive but each remains on the verge of disclosure. The sitter appears to be there, as plain as day, in that particular space; but, in the guise of clerical garb (which offers a whole other set of associations) or with seemingly disinterested, paused facial expressions, they're anywhere but here. I like to think we can sense them thinking, perhaps of us as we think about them. Therefore “self and other” disappear momentarily. – J.O.
Born in Butte , Montana , Jayme Odgers graduated from The Art Center School in Los Angeles with a Bachelors Degree in Art with Great Distinction. In 1966, Odgers was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study in Europe . During this time, he was honored with over 100 awards of excellence in design including Gold and Silver Medal Awards plus an international silver Typomundus Award for Excellence in typography
His work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum , The San Francisco Museum of Art, Arco Center for the Visual Arts, The Albright Knox Museum and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York City and the White House in Washington , D.C. Jayme's poster for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences was included in the Walker Art Center 's 1984 landmark show, Posters of The Century: Design of the Avant Garde along with works by Rodchenko, Man Ray and Paul Rand. Numerous books and articles have included Odgers' work as have consecutive issues of Who's Who . In addition to teaching at The Art Center School and its later incarnation, the Art Center College of Design, the California Institute of the Arts and Otis-Parsons in Los Angeles , Jayme has guest taught and lectured extensively. Most recently he toured and lectured in Tokyo , Nagoya and Osaka , Japan at the invitation of the Tokyo Gakuin.
His most recent public art commission has been the design of two water fountains for the plaza of the Metropolitan Water District's headquarters in downtown Los Angeles .
Expatriate New Zealand artist Philippa Blair creates vibrant abstract paintings that fuse influences from her New Zealand heritage with the various cities in which she has lived and worked.
Blair's celebrated career originated in New Zealand at Canterbury 's Ilam School of Art where her characteristic expressive force was encouraged by Rudi Gopas, Ilam's influential tutor. Gopas' preference for emotion over formal theory fostered expressive liberty in his students' art. Blair's paintings are unencumbered by formality, and a fresh air of freedom resonates throughout her oeuvre.
Movement and the materiality of paint are distinct features of Blair's work. The spatial dynamic of her canvasses reveals sudden arcs and pivots that recall the painter's bodily movements. Her paintings therefore have a kinaesthetic quality; they are a record of the convergence where painting meets sensory performance.
Beginning with drawings, maps, collage and decollage, Blair's ideas evolve over a number of weeks. It is after this intense preliminary work that she commits paint to the blank canvas in a spontaneous flurry of memory and movement. This approach necessitates knowledge of numerous sensory impulses and memory as well as a geographic consciousness.
Like the chief protagonists of Abstract Expressionism, Blair paints from above her canvas, thus defying a singular direction and denying a specific interpretation. Her painterly process is characterised by physicality and spontaneity of gestural force. Blair's palette has no bounds; contrasting and complementary colours are applied directly from the tube or dropped, drizzled or splattered across the primed canvass. In recent works negative (white) space has appeared, ironically heightening the presence of colour and the tactility of paint. Blair manipulates the movement of paint across the surface by rotating her canvas and spilling, pouring, slicing and carving her oils to build and excavate the final image.
There are a myriad of hybrid influences that contribute to Blair's paintings; music, film, urban environments and the forces of nature are amongst her chief inspiration. Blair's paintings convey the energy and performance of dance, as well as L.A. 's seismic environment, Hollywood , architectural surroundings and the vast Pacific Ocean .
~ Warwick Henderson Gallery, Auckland , NZ
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