CHIAROSCURO:PAINTINGS BY CANDICE GWAME
CORNELIUS PROJECTS SAN PEDRO
NOVEMBER 6, 2016–JANUARY 22, 2017
OPENING RECEPTION ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 FROM 3–6 PM
The day began slumped in a chair, aching, and now cold, at 3.31am - I could see it on my phone. My laptop had slid down my legs to the floor but somehow survived. As I woke up I was already thinking about Candice Gawne's chiarascuro images, some of which are on display at San Pedro's Cornelius Projects until mid-January, 2017 in her show CHIAROSCURO:PAINTINGS BY CANDICE GWAME. Startling, beautiful and for me, uplifting and foreboding all at once. Chiaroscuro-pic, then.
Candice Gawne lives and works in San Pedro and along the coast. She has a great name. She's been painting and drawing since she was a kid, I'd read in the EasyReader a great story about her selling her possessions at 18 at the infamous Roadium Swap Meet and taking a bus to El Camino College to study life drawing, her obsession. That's merely a hint of the dedication and drive and incredible talent that brought her group and solo shows and the sort of success many living artists never see!
Her painting lust evolved into light sculpture and Candice's renowned neon art has been exhibited throughout the world. You can see some of that too at Cornelius Projects.
The chiaroscuro paintings though are so totally arresting... When I look at Corridor, or Traveler, or Sleepwalk on the Cornelius Projects website it's like a walk through my life right there in front of me, of course, the melding of the unending private sorrow and the public joy. The color and the atmospherics will not be denied. The darkness is strident. They light attempts defiance. I'm looking at them onscreen wishing they were larger than life sized somewhere else other than in my head so that I could move physically through them, as scary as that seems to me.
Cornelius Projects' Laurie Steelink says "Gawne infuses seemingly simple scenes with a light that allows them to blossom into radiant visions of depth and consciousness." Gawne has said that “Everything I want to say can be told in light.” And it true, as Laurie Steelink adds, throughout her career, Gawne has honed light, the most elusive material. It tells tales.
Oh 3.44 now I gotta stow this computer more safely, get these images out of my mind and get some sleep.
Essential info
CHIAROSCURO:PAINTINGS BY CANDICE GWAME
CORNELIUS PROJECTS SAN PEDRO
Saturdays & Sundays from 12–5 pm or by appointment
Candice Gawne will be sitting at Cornelius Projects on the following days so drop in and say hello:
Saturday, December 17
Saturdays, January 7,14, 21
Sundays, January 8,15, 22
corneliusprojects.com
