GROUNDWORK
Inaugural Exhibition: January 15 - February 26, 2005
“Groundwork,” opening January 15, presents work by eight artists who explore
the topographic and conceptual meanings of landscape. As the inaugural
show of d.e.n. contemporary art, “Groundwork” also lays the foundation
for the program of the new gallery.
In Tim Forcum’s lively oil paintings, abstract shapes “dot” the landscape,
a direct comment on the encroachment of development on the artist’s own
Los Angeles environment; a concern shared by Washington, D.C.-based Isabel
Manalo, whose paintings of trees in urban parklands shimmer with a “toxic
glow” drawing attention to the fragile relationship between nature and
industrialization.
Fran Siegel’s Plexiglas box pieces are built with reflective materials
to capture and contain the refracted light particular to America’s west
coast shorelines. The result is an ethereal topography influenced by very
specific locations. In Shona Macdonald’s "island” drawings, often influenced
by her native Scotland, she explores the ambiguity of mapmaking, where
natural and man-made arterial systems blend to defy categorization.
With layers of individually hand-cut paper, Japanese artist Noriko Ambe
builds intriguing intaglio images of mountainous and cavernous forms,
charting a “mysterious land that lies between physical and emotional geography.”
Also working with layers, Michael Napper’s mixed-media works on canvas
function as palimpsests, where fragments of text and architecture, discordant
textures, and stains make visible the evolution of the painting, mapping
a terrain of growth and loss.
For Leyla Cardenas, originally from Colombia, a sense of place is informed
by the inhabitants who made it their own. Her canvas ”peels” of physical
places resemble sculptural satellite views, but are intimate records of
use and absence, artifacts of a distinct place and time; while Brandon
Morse’s ‘’Situation on the Ground,” is a mesmerizing three-screen video
installation documenting the generation and play of cumulus clouds across
the expanse of the earth.
Gallerist Donna Enad Napper founded d.e.n. contemporary art to promote
the work of new and emerging artists working locally, nationally, and
abroad. Previously with Los Angeles galleries Hunsaker/ Schlesinger Fine
Art and Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Ms. Napper also served as curator for
the architect Michael W. Folonis and administrator for the Art Dealers
Association of California. “Groundwork” is on view through February 26
at 6023 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City.