Charlotte Jackson Fine Art is pleased to announce an entire weekend of events celebrating the renowned California artist, Tony DeLap.  The celebration begins with an exhibition of works spanning DeLap's career, Selected Works from Fifty Years of Making Art, by Tony DeLap which will open at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art on October 17 and extend through November 17.  An Opening Reception for the artist will be held on Friday, October 17 from 5-7 p.m. The gallery is located in the Railyard Arts District at 554 South Guadalupe Street.  The celebration continues with a Film Premier and Book Signing on Monday, October 20th, 4-6 pm at the Jean Cocteau Cinema at 418 Montezuma Ave.  Free tickets for the film and book signing are available through the gallery.

The work of Tony DeLap always leads the eye in unexpected directions.  Blocks of intense color on canvas intersect and pull the eye deep into what seems to be a maze of three dimensional forms.  The edge of a sculptural painting on the wall bends, twists back on itself, confusing the eye and defying the notion of what is painting, what is sculpture, what is edge, and what is content.  With their deceptive geometries, elegant lines, and finish fetish colors, DeLap’s work, whether it is a painting, drawing, sculpture, or sculptural painting, always display a mastery of expectation and perception. 

DeLap, a veteran of the West Coast’s art scene, was an early follower of Modernism and the Russian Constructivists, pursuing geometrical abstraction as it moved toward minimalism.  He studied at the San Francisco Academy of Art and later at the Claremont Graduate School.  In the early years in his studio in Oakland, DeLap had wide interests and influences, including architecture and graphic design.  It is clear to see their influence on his work, not only in their clean lines and complex geometries, but in their distinctive and cunning construction.  While many of his contemporaries were moving toward fabrication, one of the unique aspects of DeLap’s work is its insistence on the essentialness of the maker’s hand.  DeLap’s first work was mostly with glass sculpture and he received early attention, getting a cover of Artforum magazine. 

Over the years, DeLap’s work has been aligned by critics with several of the artistic movements of the 20^th Century: Hard Edge, Finish Fetish, Op Art, Minimalism, Constructivism, and Art & Space to name a few, yet DeLap has managed to remain unfettered by these labels, utilizing techniques and ideas from the movements and in turn contributing to their development while maintaining a mix of a playful curiosity and serious artistic exploration that is distinctively his own.  His influence extended beyond the gallery, as well.  DeLap first taught at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and then received an offer to become one of the founding members of the art department at the newly founded University of California at Irvine.  DeLap’s influence on future artists included mentoring notables like Bruce Nauman, James Turrell, and John McCracken.  DeLap was among those included in seminal exhibitions in the 1960’s like the “American Sculpture in the Sixties,” exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  His pieces have been included in prestigious collections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Hirshhorn, the Whitney, and the Tate in London. 

It is not surprising that DeLap, with such a rich history of art-making and such a far-reaching effect on the world of art, has become the subject of both a new book and a new film.  The book, Tony DeLap, is a joint production of Art Santa Fe Presents and Santa Fe based art book publisher, Radius Books. At 192 pages, with 128 gorgeous full color images, the volume presents a thorough survey of DeLap’s career to date, including an essay by noted art critic Barbara Rose. 

A book-signing with Tony DeLap will take place as part of the premier showing of the new film, Tony DeLap: A Unique Perspective, by filmmaker Dale Schierholt.  Schierholt, who began his career as a print designer and photographer, switched to filmmaking in the 1990’s.  His latest project, California Masters, in collaboration with the Laguna Art Museum, is a series of films on the artists who have defined art in California.  It seems fitting that Scheirholt chose Tony DeLap as the subject of the first film in his series.  Through a series of interviews, studio visits, and trips to sites throughout California to visit installations of DeLap’s art, the film explores how, “Tony’s work challenges and surprises as it reveals itself to us through our changing viewing perspective.”

With Selected Works from Fifty Years of Making Art, opening Friday, October 17, from 5-7 p.m., viewers will have the rare opportunity to see a whole range of this perception-challenging work spanning DeLap’s career, and to experience firsthand the illusive qualities of his art.  The premier of the film Tony DeLap: A Unique Perspective, along with a book signing for the gorgeous survey, Tony DeLap by Radius Books, will take place on Monday, October 20^th from 4-6 p.m. at the Jean Cocteau Cinema at 418 Montezuma.

For more information about any of these events, and for tickets for the film premier, contact Charlotte Jackson Fine Art at 505-989-8688 or visit us online at www.charlottejackson.com.