As you know we never preview stuff. We never get invited to the previews. Never deferential enough. Drank too much too often when we've been there and lost our notes and more on the way home and so on. We much to prefer to snidely remark afterwards. So obviously by inference then, when we bother to move our arses into preview mode, you'd better believe it.
Linear Motion opens Saturday, September 13th, at The Loft at Liz's, 453 S. La Brea. Being big fans of the GrandDaddy of Kinetic Art, Jesus Raphael Soto and Op Art Era Queen, Bridget Riley and cohorts, this is just the sort of thing we're into. Moreover, since we have a couple of items from the artist Jory Gaunce on the walls of the outsideleft fun basement, we're dead keen on the prospect of everyone getting over there on Saturday and buying up his work so that we can take ours to the bank.
Although pretty much Jordan's doing nothing but painting these days he did crack the door of his Venice beach apartment for a few minutes to answer some questions about the show. It was fun, really, standing in his hallway. Reminded me a lot Tom Waits song for a minute 'What's He Doing In There?' Maybe I made that one up, or when an ex-girlfriend sold the fridge and wouldn't let me into our apartment in case I would find out.
It's been a while since Jordan last showed his work and from what I've seen this new stuff using line and color to shift the canvas's surface to suggest that the lines are moving or distorting the rectangular canvas in an unexpected, dynamic, and sometimes awkward way looks to me like a radical departure from the quasi-spiritual-cut-up-art-technological-conflagrations of yore... I mean this new style may be making the same point as far as I know.
"My work used to be more figurative," Jordan begins, "Concerned with a spiritual and mythic human narrative. The current paintings are abstract, and primarily concerned with line and color. It is a big shift. I wanted to simplify my painting and I wanted to be able to give the viewer a meaningful experience with a real economy of form and vocabulary." He has always been interested in visual illusions and Op Art but this is the first show to truly feature these themes since he began investigating them in earnest.
He'd been refining this collection for some time before deciding it needed to be exposed to the light. He says he saw a friends' show at The Loft at Liz's and immediately decided he wanted his work to be part of what was happening there. "It's new and it's exciting," he says of The Loft at Liz's, "It's a beautiful gallery space." The Gallery owner built the Linear Motions show around the themes and forms in Jordan's work.
When I wondered what should be pulled from the medicine cabinet, as a consumer, to really get the best from the show. Jordan laughed, it's infectious, he's easy going and laid back. "How about a Runner's High?" He taunts, I think spotting my paunchiness, "Or a really spicy Vindaloo where your endorphins kick in... Maybe your readers should try a variety of things and get back to me!"
Immediately after the show Jordan heading to Italy for a while to come face to face with the history of art that the Getty hasn't stolen. Then it's back to the studio.
Meanwhile he's looking forward to the show, to starting new relationship with a new audience.
I hadn't thought of it that way, starting a new relationship with an artist. All the painters I loved before are dead.
More of the art of Jordan Gaunce: www.jorygaunce.com,
http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/17837-jordan-gaunce
Other Artists: Pierre-Loic Denichou, Luigia Martelloni, Gary Frederick Brown, Linda Jo Russell, Joan Tucker, SA Schimmel Gold, Alessandro Violi
Linear Motion
opening at The Loft at Liz's
Saturday September 13th, 2008, 7pm-11pm (until October 11th)
453 S La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, 90036
Free Admission / Street Parking
