In her third solo exhibition at the gallery, Trang Lê presents a series of paintings that draw on the combined influences of nature and personal experience. Throughout her work, Lê navigates an inner, personal space that translates a sense of connection and balance, turmoil and grace, intuition and calculation, in a range of painterly forms. As with previous series, Trang shifts between paintings that are broad and gestural, to ones that are built upon tight, meticulous mark-making. With this exhibition, she adds another, three-dimensional aspect to the show.
For this exhibition, Trang Lê's varied techniques merge under the simple theme of 'threads'. The most literal interpretation of the theme comes through in her three-dimensional pieces, in which two rows of nails are connected by multi-colored strands of string. The undulating pattern creates an Ombre effect, which from a distance reads as painterly gradations. In the paintings, Lê presents a series of canvases comprised of intricate linework. The delicate lines are massed into varying formations, which can be read alternately as marine life undulating in water, bundles of yarn mounding over one another, streaks of colored rain or watery horizons.
References to nature have been consistent throughout her career, but each body of work is spurred by personal ruminations, translated into obsessive mark-making. In a recent series, a tally of civilians lost in the Iraq war appeared as individual swirls of paint in a mesmerizing 56-foot long piece. Her current work delves into the intensely inward realm of personal toil. In a highly personal artist statement, it becomes clear the term 'thread', is about personal unraveling and pulling back together. As in her other works, the obsessive delineations and precise, rhythmic pounding of nails are cathartic acts. Yet, the devastation and psychological heaviness which prompts the work, translates into exceptionally weightless and ultimately beautiful work.
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Trygve Faste's work emerges from a response to current forces of consumer culture, architecture and technology. Faste uses the language of abstraction to explore issues bound to these forces, which shape our physical and psychological environment. The three-dimensional paintings, rendered with a slick palette and shaped into perfect geometry, suggest a kinship with mass produced, high-tech products. Yet, the intimately painted, laboriously shaped stretchers belie the concept of impersonal, mass-production, and instead celebrate a unique interface between industry, fine art and technology.
While the influence of product design shapes his very specific aesthetic, the paintings are firmly planted in the spatial and physical motivations of abstraction and sculpture. Faste seamlessly melds these two seemingly discordant impulses into his works. He pushes this unique dynamic further by combining current technology, such as Computer Aided Design (CAD) and laser cutters, with traditional painting techniques, to create his works.
“My work investigates the aesthetics of desire in designed objects through abstract dimensional paintings,” states Faste. “Consumer culture, of which both art and design are integral, necessitates innovation, creativity, style, seduction and manipulation to propagate itself. My work engages conceptual issues of material creation through an abstract visual language of implied technology and function....I use these paintings as a means to explore issues around object creation, and as such the physicality of the work is important. ”
Faste’s work has been exhibited nationally and is in the permanent collections of The Cranbrook Art Museum, Compuware Inc. and Chrysler. Trygve Faste lives and works in Eugene, Oregon. He received an MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2004, and a BA in Mathematics-Computer Science and Studio Art from Whitman College in 1997. He was just awarded an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant for his upcoming shows in 2013.
For additional information please call 310 829 3300 or visit www.ruthbachofnergallery.com.
