"Thirdspace" exhibition at PS Zask Gallery

EXHIBITION ANNOUNCEMENT:
PS Zask Gallery

Laddie John Dill, "Ambient Trap", aircraft aluminum.

Thirdspace: Between the Boundaries Painting or Sculpture?
LA Artists who challenge us to rethink definitions.
David Bondi, Laddie John Dill, Neil Nagy,
Zachary Stadel, Tracey Weiss, Steven Wolkoff
September 19 - October 17, 2009
Opening Reception: September 19, 6:00 - 9:00 pm

PS Zask Gallery
31252 Palos Verdes Drive West, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275
Peggy Zask, Curator
(310) 429-0973
Email, pszask@cox.net
Web site, http://www.pszaskgallery.com
Gallery hours: Friday 5 - 8 pm; Saturday 12 - 8 pm; Sunday 12 - 5 pm; or by appt.

The Thirdspace can be thought of as the uncharted territory in which contemporary artists thrive. Working outside of established definitions, this group of LA artists uses both traditional and non-traditional materials to break new ground between sculpture and painting, redefining both in the process.   This movement is a vital part of the art being created in Los Angeles, highly conceptual and relevant to the progression of postmodern thought in visual art.

It is possible that the seed of this concept originated in 1968 when Venice artists Laddie John Dill and Chuck Arnoldi engaged in many discussions concerning the "Death of Painting". Following Dill's work with Robert Rauchenberg, Jasper Johns, Claus Oldenberg and Roy Lichtenstein, Dill and Arnoldi experimented with non- traditional art materials.

The Light and Space movement was initiated, and artists continued to push the definitions and explore the vast possibilities of myriad media as art.   Dill got his start with a light and space installation, using glass, sand and argon light as his media. Launching his career with a show at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York, he returned to Los Angeles and continued working with elements of his installations, combining glass, cement, wood, oxides and naturally mined colors to create abstract wall pieces that suggest aerial views of earth/ organic landforms.

Dill continues today creating a full range of work, from small wall pieces to monumental corporate installations, experimenting with new approaches to art media. He still considers himself a "painter"; his most recent works are "light traps" involving the manipulation of light through painting made of welded and polished aircraft aluminum.

Tracey Weiss blurs the distinction between painting and sculpture working with clay - a traditional sculptural medium. Weiss, a ceramic artist who thinks of craft as a verb, replicates stretched canvas over wood stretcher bars, incorporating references to dominant art movements such as the New York School, Minimalism, and Pop Art. One sees the work as a canvas on the wall, perhaps tearing, or dripping paint, but on second look the work reveals the ceramic artist at play with the viewer's expectations.

Zack Stadel, "Pee Shy",
acrylic, cotton thread, wood.

DBondi0909a

Dave Bondi, "Star Wars Toy
Revisited", mixed media.

Steve Wolkoff, "Green
Spikes", acrylic on canvas.

Zachary Stadel examines the conventions of construction and presentation in various media (painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and architecture) to find the tipping point where a work in one medium will suddenly or partially register in another, changing the terms by which we may consider the work. In one series focused on painting, Stadel considers the anatomy of a painting, reorganizing the materials within painting's conventions of presentation. He transposes, shifts and eliminates the functions of painting's elements - stretcher bars, canvas, and paint - to arrive at something simultaneously recognizable and foreign.

Neil Nagy works with the natural chemistry of iron and copper under the influence of acids and acid based patinas applied as abstract images and patterns. By presenting these materials in a wall hung rectangular format, Nagy examines the boundary between painting and sculpture in the context of the relationship between construction and de-construction in nature. The resulting products feel less like flat images trapped in a picture plane and more like coincidentally rectangular segments of natural three-dimensional entities.

Steven Wolkoff creates three-dimensional paintings, which blur the lines between painting and sculpture. From a distance, his paintings appear to be pulsing color fields, but closer inspection reveals high reliefs of spikes projecting from the canvas, and lines swirling off the canvas and back around. The physicality of these paintings creates an interplay with light, shadow, and space that reevaluates the boundaries of the medium.

Dave Bondi blends the disciplines of painting and sculpture while working primarily in resins and foam. On first impression, his work appears as colorful, tactile action painting, following in the tradition of abstract expressionism and color theory. A closer look reveals deliberate three-dimensional compositions, which are more closely related to sculpture.