Mark Moore Fine Art Blog

The gallery is pleased to announce that a major work, “Vessels and Water” (2014), by Mark Moore Gallery artist Andrew Schoultz, has been acquired by the Honolulu Museum of Art.

Founded in 1927, the Honolulu Museum of Art is Hawai‘i’s largest private presenter of visual arts programs, with an internationally recognized collection of more than 50,000 works spanning 5,000 years. In addition to the visual arts, film and concert programs, lectures, art classes and workshops make the museum the state’s cultural hub.

Sourcing inspiration from 15th Century German map making and Indian miniature paintings, Andrew Schoultz’s frenetic imagery depicts an ephemeral history bound to repeat itself. In his mixed-media works, notions of war, spirituality and sociopolitical imperialism are reoccurring themes, which shrewdly parallel an equally repetitive contemporary pursuit of accumulation and power. Intricate line work, painting, metal leaf and collage twist and undulate under Schoultz’s meticulous hand, ranging from intimately sized wall works to staggering murals and installations. While his illustrated world seems one of chaos and frenzy, Schoultz also implies a sense of alluring fantasy and whimsy – a crossroads vaguely familiar to the modern world.

Schoultz (b. 1975, WI) received his BFA from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco (CA). He has had solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Copenhagen, Philadelphia, Rotterdam, Boston, London, Portland, Detroit and Milan. He has been included in group exhibitions at the Andy Warhol Museum (PA), Torrance Art Museum (CA), Havana Biennial (Cuba), Hyde Park Arts Center (IL), Laguna Art Museum (CA), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), among others. His work can be seen in the public collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), Frederick R. Weisman Foundation (CA) and the Progressive Art Collection (OH), in addition to his publicly funded murals in Portland (ME), Jogjakarta (Indonesia) and San Francisco (CA). Schoultz lives and works in San Francisco (CA).

For more information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Gallery artist David Maisel  has several works featured in the opening credit sequence for HBO’s “True Detective.”  Should you find yourself watching the highly-acclaimed show, you’ll see images from his “Lake Project,” “Terminal Mirage,” “American Mine,” “The Mining Project,” and “Oblivion” series prominently collaged into the sequence.

David Maisel is a visual artist based in San Francisco, CA. His large-scaled, surreal photographs chronicle the complex relationships between natural systems and human culture. His research-based practice has been the subject of five monographs, including “The Lake Project” (Nazraeli Press, 2004), “Oblivion” (Nazraeli Press, 2006), “Library of Dust” (Chronicle Books, 2008), “History’s Shadow” (Nazraeli Press, 2011), and “Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime” (Steidl, 2013). Maisel’s images of radically altered terrain have transformed the practice of contemporary landscape photography. His hallucinatory worldview encompasses both stark documentary and tragic metaphor, and explores the relationship between nature and humanity today. Maisel’s images of environmentally impacted sites consider the aesthetics and politics of open pit mines, clear-cut forests, rampant urbanization and sprawl, and zones of water reclamation. These surreal and disquieting images take us towards the margins of the unknown, and as the Los Angeles Times has stated, “argue for an expanded definition of beauty, one that bypasses glamour to encompass the damaged, the transmuted, the decomposed.” Maisel also explores similar ideas of perception through alternative techniques in other bodies of work, such as “History’s Shadow” (completed during the artist’s residency at the Getty Research Institute) and “Library of Dust,” which The New York Times has called “a fevered meditation on memory, loss, and the uncanny monuments we sometimes recover about what has gone before.”

Maisel is the recipient of a 2011 grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, a 2008 Artist Residency from the Headlands Center for the Arts, and a 2007 Scholar/Artist Residency from the Getty Research Institute. Maisel has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Opsis Foundation. He was appointed a Trustee of the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2011. His work has been shown globally, including in such prestigious institutions as the California Museum of Photography (CA), Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (AZ), Portland Art Museum (OR), Fotografie Forum International (Frankfurt), American Academy (Rome), Musee des Beaux Artes (Bordeaux), and Seoul Arts Center (Seoul) among many other venues. Maisel’s works are in major public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the Getty Museum (CA), the National Gallery of Art (D.C.), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), among many other institutions. He received his BA from Princeton University, studied at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and received his MFA from California College of the Arts. The artist lives and works in Sausalito (CA).

Gallery artist Yoram Wolberger currently has work on display at the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts (TX) in the exhibition, “Dual | Nature: Selections from the Chaney Family Collection.“

The exhibition opened on June 20,  and features over twenty extraordinary pieces from the Houston-based Chaney Family’s collection of Contemporary art in the Pearl’s Main Gallery. “Dual|Nature” explores the dichotomy of works in the Chaney Family Collection, and includes contemporary pieces from around the world. This extraordinary show will be on view through September 5, 2015, and also features work by artists such as Damien Hirst, Oleg Dou, Valerie Hegarty, Yoshitomo Nara, and Cindy Sherman, among others.

Yoram Wolberger uses childhood toys and everyday domestic items to create his large scale sculptures, foregrounding the latent symbolism and cultural paradigms of these objects that so subtly inform Western culture. By enlarging this ephemera to life size, Wolberger emphasizes the distortions of their original manufacture disallowing any real illusion and conceptually forcing the viewer to reconsider their meanings. When enlarged beyond any possibility of dismissal, we see that toy soldiers create lines between Us and Them, plastic cowboys and Indians marginalize and stereotype the Other, even wedding cake bride and groom figurines dictate our expected gender roles.

Wolberger (b. 1963, Tel Aviv, Israel) earned his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute’s (CA) New Genres Department. He has had solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and has been featured in group exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (NY), deCordova Sculpture Park (MA), the Aldrich Contemporary Museum (CT), Orange County Museum of Art (CA), Museum of Contemporary Art (IL) and the Israeli Museum of Modern Art (Israel) among others. His works have been acquired for the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art (NY), Frederick R. Weisman Foundation (CA), the Orange County Museum of Art (CA), Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California Riverside (CA) and the McNay Art Museum (TX). The artist lives and works in San Francisco, CA.

Celebrate summer with a leisurely afternoon in the Culver City Arts District as we host our annual Summer Crawl tomorrow (June 20, 2015) from 3-6pm!

The community is invited to enjoy a leisurely afternoon with a free self-guided tour of art galleries  and enjoy  “specials” at select restaurants and shops including area favorites such as Arcana Books on the Arts, Cognescenti Coffee, Bar & Garden, Attire LA and Graphaids.  Attend a free figure sketch class at Graphaids, folk and opera music (not together!) at Sixty29 Contemporary,  and a book signing with Cynthia Connolly, Bryan Ray Turcotte and new Deadbeat Club ‘zines at Arcana Books!

In celebration of the event, Mark Moore Gallery will donate 5% of any artwork sales to The Rape Foundation (Los Angeles, CA), which provides expert, comprehensive services for victims of rape, sexual assault, and child sexual abuse, including specialized medical care, forensic services, crisis counseling and longer-term psychotherapy, advocacy, and other forms of support.

Additionally, the gallery will serve as the location for the Coolhaus gourmet ice cream truck, Every Coolhaus ice cream sandwich treat is all-natural, handmade and organic whenever possible, made with sustainably produced, hormone-free dairy and fresh, local ingredients – because they’re all about satisfying your sweet tooth AND mother nature.

Join in the fun and take in some sweet treats, sunny weather, an incredible solo exhibition by Vernon Fisher, your local arts district, and a charitable cause.

Interdisciplinary artist Kiel Johnson was recently selected to be a featured artist for the 2015 Adobe MAX Creative Conference, which takes place in Los Angeles (CA) October 3-7.

As promotion for the conference, Adobe invited Kiel to make use of their “artist wall,” which can be drawn, painted, installed, and sculpted upon however the artist sees fit. In collaboration with videographer Theo Jemison, Kiel produced this video project to accompany his rendition of the wall. Together, the video and wall create “The Plotter,” an illustration contraption created entirely out of Johnson’s signature cardboard, chipboard, and hardware.

Kiel Johnson’s drawings and sculptures tell tales; layered narratives speak of his travels and adventures through everyday life. His works become a springboard for metaphorical investigations of the world he inhabits. Although both factual fictions and absurd scenarios, they are ultimately testaments to observation that force us to question the concrete and truthful. What at first might appear safe and secure will be, upon further inspection, very precarious.

Johnson (b. 1975, Missouri) received his MFA at California State University, Long Beach (CA). He has received prestigious awards and honors including the Pollock-Krasner Grant, Durfee Foundation ARC Grant, and the CSULB Outstanding Creative Achievement Award. He has had solo exhibitions at the Taubman Museum of Art (VA), Irvine Art Center (CA), and the Creative Artists Agency (CA), in addition to group inclusion at the McNay Museum (TX), Torrance Art Museum (CA), Huntington Beach Art Center (CA), and the University Art Museum, Long Beach (CA). His work appears in several important public and private collections including the Creative Artist Agency (CA), Tubert International (CA), Steve Martin Collection (NY), Todd Oldham (NY), and Sprint World Headquarters (MO). Johnson currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Gallery artist Jean Shin will present a lecture about her work and practice during the Public Art and Placemaking Preconference as part of the 2015 Annual Convention of Americans for the Arts on Friday, June 12, at 9:45am. Taking place in Chicago (IL), this sector of the conference will celebrate how far the public art field has come and will dive into the future of public art and placemaking. The Public Art & Placemaking Preconference begins at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10 and goes through 11:00 a.m. on Friday, June 12. This preconference will take place at the convention headquarters, the Chicago Sheraton, with special public art tours occurring throughout Chicago.

Jean Shin is nationally recognized for her monumental installations that transform everyday objects into elegant expressions of identity and community. For each project, she amasses vast collections of a particular object—prescription pill bottles, sports trophies, sweaters—which are often sourced through donations from individuals in a participating community. These intimate objects then become the materials for her conceptually rich sculptures, videos and site-specific installations. Distinguished by her meticulous, labor-intensive process, and her engagement of community, Shin’s arresting installations reflect individuals’ personal lives as well as collective issues that we face as a society.

Her work has been widely exhibited in major national and international museums, including in solo exhibitions at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona (2010), Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC (2009), the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia (2006), and Projects at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (2004).

Other venues have been the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Art and Design, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Asia Society and Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, Sculpture Center, Socrates Sculpture Park, and Frederieke Taylor Gallery in New York City. Site-specific permanent installations have been commissioned by the US General Services Administration Art in Architecture Award, New York City’s Percent for the Arts and MTA Art for Transit. She has received numerous awards, including the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Architecture/Environmental Structures (2008) and Sculpture (2003), Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Art Award. Her works have been featured in many publications, including Frieze Art, Flash Art, Tema Celeste, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, Artnews, and The New York Times.

Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in the United States, Shin attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1999 and received a BFA and MS from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She lives and works in New York City.

For more information about the artist or available work, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

Gallery artist Ryan Wallace will open a solo exhibition of new works at Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco (CA) on Friday, June 12, from 6-9pm. Titled “LD50,” the exhibition will showcase Wallace’s trademark mixed-media canvases, and sculptures, as well as a site-specific installation, all of which will remain on view through July 25, 2015.

Says the gallery:

The exhibition title, “LD50,”derives from the technical term “median lethal dose” used by toxicologists to refer to the dose required to kill half, 50%, of a tested population. Wallace borrows this title as a means of exploring what is maximal to the point of detriment. His works test the amount of material and mark that can be done or affixed to a painting, sculpture or exhibition space before it is figuratively, physically or compositionally destroyed. 

In his 1952 essay “The American Action Painters” Harold Rosenberg coined the term “action paintings.” The canvas was no longer considered a hermetic, independent object, but rather became “an arena in which to act” and the finished work was only a residue of the actual work of art – the process of the painting’s creation. Wallace’s work touches upon this in that his studio is the site of production where drop cloths on the floor become the ground upon which he performs, accumulating marks and actions of the making. At first glance, the paintings are indistinguishable from the floor and the heterogeneity of debris upon it. Compositions evolve organically from the interplay of materials in the studio – plaster, concrete, studio detritus, tape, glue, adhesive, tarp, window vinyl, powdered metal -as well as from the interplay of materials that have been cast off, removed, and redacted from previous works.

Wallace was born in 1977 in New York, NY. He received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (RI). He was the 2011 recipient of the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, and has had solo exhibitions in Copenhagen, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. He has also shown work at the Frans Masereel Center (Belgium), Torrance Art Museum (CA), Katzen Arts Center (D.C.), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (CA), and other venues. His work is featured in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (CA), the U.S. Department of the Treasury (D.C.), and the Cleveland Clinic (OH), among others. Wallace is also represented by Susan Inglett Gallery (New York), Cooper Cole Gallery (Toronto), and Mark Moore Gallery (Los Angeles). The artist lives and works in New York.

For more information about the artist or available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com

Gallery artist Julie Heffernan – whose work is currently on view at the gallery through June 13, 2015 – will be included in “Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath – Force of Nature” at Wave Hill (NY). The exhibition runs from June 7 – September 7, 2015, with an opening reception from 2-4:30pm on June 7th.

Says the curator:

As part of “Seven Deadly Sins,” a collaborative series of exhibitions being presented by  the seven arts institutions that comprise the Fairfield Westchester Museum Alliance. Wave Hill is exploring the concept of wrath as it relates to times of environmental uncertainty, with paintings and sculpture by artists who have a long-term interest in depicting cataclysmic forces. Exhibiting artists include  Diane Burko, Brian Adam Douglas,Angela Dufresne, Julie Heffernan, Amer Kobasilja, Kent Monkman,Tameka Norris, Brian Novatny, David Opdyke, Anne Peabody, Jon Rappleye and Alexis Rockman.

In the wake of more frequent tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, droughts and forest fires, the idea of a greater emotion. Faced with these uncontrollable forces, gardens like Wave Hill become sanctuaries.

This exhibition features contemporary artists who are concerned with “the wrath of nature.” The show will emphasize, though not exclusively, painterly depictions of natural disaster, often in an expressive tone or in an allegorical frame. Whether the selected artists focus on emotional states or respond to recent events, they explore the precariousness of the contemporary world.

We are exhibiting artists who have a long-term interest in picturing cataclysmic forces: Diane Burko, Brian Adam Douglas, Angela Dufresne, Julie Heffernan, Amer Kobaslija, Kent Monkman, Tameka Norris, Brian Novatny, David Opdyke, Anne Peabody, Jon Rappleye and Alexis Rockman. This exhibition also features public programs including artist talks, film screenings, wellness workshops and regular tours. 

Wrath–Force of Nature is part of a multi-institution presentation of the “Seven Deadly Sins” organized by the Fairfield Westchester Museum Alliance, each member museum will present an exhibition and programs exploring one particular sin. Our collaborators include the Aldrich Museum (sloth), Bruce Museum (pride), Hudson River Museum (envy), Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (lust), Katonah Museum (gluttony), and Neuberger Museum (greed).  

For more information about the artist or available work, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

The gallery is pleased to announce that a major work, “Happy Squat” (2014), by Mark Moore Gallery artist Kenichi Yokono, has been acquired by the Honolulu Museum of Art.

Founded in 1927, the Honolulu Museum of Art is Hawai‘i’s largest private presenter of visual arts programs, with an internationally recognized collection of more than 50,000 works spanning 5,000 years. In addition to the visual arts, film and concert programs, lectures, art classes and workshops make the museum the state’s cultural hub. 

Kenichi Yokono uses traditional woodblock methodologies to address the comic book horrors of contemporary Japanese culture. Manga, anime, horror movies, and other stereotypical aspects of Japanese pop culture merge to present iconic images of buoyant menace and cruelty, which serve to contrast startlingly with the sugary cartoon characters that are also common. Although functioning woodblocks, the works are only ever exhibited directly and prints are never produced. Such a method maintains the primacy of the hand made object and the artist retains a tangible presence. These multiple oppositions in Yokono’s work results in pieces that are highly relevant critiques that retain a pleasing irony.

Born in 1972 (Kanazawa, Japan), Yokono was trained at the Kanazawa College of Art (Japan). He has had solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Los Angeles, Vienna and Amsterdam, among numerous international group shows at venues such as the Torrance Art Museum (CA), The Ueno Royal Museum (Tokyo), Mori Museum (Tokyo), Suzaka Manga Museum (Nagano), Hilger Contemporary (Vienna), and Joshua Liner Gallery (NY). He has participated in residencies at the McColl Center for Visual Art (NC) and the International Studio and Curatorial Program (NY), and was the recipient of the 2005 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship Award, as well as the Tom Eccles Prize (NY). His work in included in the collections of the West Collection (PA), The Pigozzi Collection (NY/SWZ), and Progressive Collection (OH) among others. In addition to Mark Moore Gallery, Yokono is also represented by Micheko Galerie, a German gallery with a focus on 21st Century Art from Japan, and Unseal Contemporary (Japan). The artist lives and works in Kanazawa, Japan.

For more information about the artist or his available works, please email info@markmooregallery.com.

The gallery is pleased to announce that the major installation, “Wishy Washy” (2006), by artist duo the Clayton Brothers, has been acquired by the Museum of Art and History, Lancaster (CA). Now a part of the museum’s permanent collection, “Wishy Washy” will soon be on display at the institution – an opportunity that will best showcase the work’s dimensional, audible, and interactive components.

The Lancaster Museum of Art and History is dedicated to strengthening awareness, enhancing accessibility and igniting the appreciation of art, history and culture in the Antelope Valley through dynamic exhibitions, innovative educational programs, creative community engagement and a vibrant collection that celebrates the richness of the region. The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) is home to over 10,000 objects, spanning the creative and technological achievements of the Antelope Valley from Native Americans to American Pioneers. In addition, other holdings include historic American military artifacts, prehistoric fossil specimens, and ancient Egyptian artifacts. MOAH’s collection of art is the finest in the Antelope Valley and is comprised of an expanding collection of western, modern and contemporary art. MOAH’s art collection consists of varied media including painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture spanning the early 1900’s to contemporary times. Noteworthy artists within the historic collection includes Van Saake, La Monk, Lee, and Burgess. The specialized Eglash Collection focuses on contemporary art makers of Southern California. In addition, the Museum houses encyclopedic holdings of historic period clothing and textiles as well as prints, drawings, archival materials, and photographs that are displayed in rotation for reasons of preservation.

For brothers Rob and Christian Clayton, collaboration is more than a process: the concept of symbiosis resonates through every aspect of their paintings and installations. In a practice devoid of ego and restraint, the Clayton brothers develop intensely compacted narratives on an intuitive basis. Rob and Christian Clayton seldom work on the same canvas at the same time, or discuss their projects during their creation. Playing off of a uniquely unspoken synergy, they take turns inventing, adding to, and editing each piece, propelling their “stories” through spontaneous improvisation. Entwining their independent approaches, styles, and palettes, their works operate as co-authored epics, fusing the concept of self with the communal.

Working from their Los Angeles studio, the Clayton brothers draw inspiration from their immediate environment by incorporating local businesses, neighborhood regulars, and snippets of overheard conversations as subjects for their paintings. Composing their pieces in conjunction with one another, recurrent motifs, gestures, places, and figures appear within different works; creating the drama of linked experience. Set upon collaged canvases, the physical layers of their surfaces create a condensed tableaux. The brothers approach painting as a visual representation of pure energy: everyday scenes explode in vortexes of blinding color, movement is practically animated, and products make their placement, an effect similar to viewing every frame of a film simultaneously. In presenting a specific locality, the Clayton brothers relate the personal to the global, but still offer a vision of “America-as-it-is.” In turn, they celebrate and share all of its diverse, spectacular, and solitary splendor.

Rob (b. 1963, OH) and Christian (b. 1967, CO) Clayton both received their B.F.A.s from Art Center College of Design (CA). They have had solo exhibitions at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (CA), and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (WI) in addition to shows in Houston, New York, Beijing, Los Angeles, and Miami. Their work has also been included in shows at the Museum of the Moving Image (NY), Santa Monica Museum of Art (CA), Laguna Art Museum (CA), Kistler Beach Museum of Art (KS), Corcoran Museum of Art (DC), and the Dallas Museum of Art (TX), among others. They have also participated in more than twenty visiting artist lectures around the world, and their work appears in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA), Norton Museum of Art (FL), Sweeney Art Gallery at the University of California, Riverside (CA), and the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art (CA). The artists both live and work in Los Angeles, CA.