Three Painters: Sharon Bell, Kerry Kugelman, Michael Maas: Opening Reception: Saturday, February 15, 6-9 pm

February 10, 2014

Groundspace Project: Three Painters: Sharon Bell, Kerry Kugelman, Michael Maas
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 15, 6:00 to 9:00 pm
Exhibition Dates: February 15 – March 8, 2014

Groundspace Project is pleased to present Three Painters: Sharon Bell, Kerry Kugelman, Michael Maas, an exhibition that takes three different approaches to abstraction. Ranging from Sharon Bell’s edgy colorist, graphic topologies, to Kerry Kugelman’s mystical and fluid lyricism, to Michael Maas’ geometrically concise undulating patterns; all the works in this exhibition share a visceral feel for paint, form and color.

Please join us for the opening reception of “Three Painters: Sharon Bell, Kerry Kugelman, Michael Maas” Saturday, February 15, 6:00 to 9:00 pm.

Artists’ Statements:

Sharon Bell

Slicing up some old Thomas Guides to make collages, I noticed that many of the pages themselves were lovely compositions. So I thought to interpret them as 24” x 30” paintings (about nine times the size of a TG page). The collages incorporate actual pages and printouts of them as well as other stuff. Mapping is the theme here; or transformation of maps. And hey, just as painting was/is considered obsolete, so too are paper maps, especially ones designed for use in the car. It’s good to know, then, that Thomas Guides are still being published.

Kerry Kugelman

My current body of work is a visual exploration of mysterious atmospheres punctuated with light and color. Hazy, diaphanous layers of paint imply an experience of time, history, and memory, an ephemeral visual experience.

Grounded in a language of organic abstraction, my work is also informed by landscape painting, from the sublime power of Nature in 19th-century landscapes to the dappled and euphoric vistas of California Impressionism, and decidedly bleaker depictions of contemporary landscape as well. However, there is an interior landscape at work in my paintings as well, an abstracted, intuitive world.

Luminosity and abstraction suffuse these paintings, as well as a brooding tonality. In the tension between light and dark, spatial illusion and the flattened surface, I explore the territory of the mysterious and the ominous, where the unknown has a sense of wonder, but possibly dread as well.

Michael Maas

I became a full-time artist in 1996 after having been, among other things, a bicycle racer in France, a meat-cutter in Illinois, and a life insurance salesman in Newport Beach, California. Primarily self-taught, my paintings are in collections in Australia, Canada, England, France, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, and throughout the United States. I currently have a studio in the Beacon Arts Building in Inglewood, and another in Fallbrook, California, where I have lived since 2007.

Groundspace Project is an alternative exhibition space located in downtown Los Angeles.Gallery hours are Friday and Saturday, 1 to 6 pm.Groundspace Project, 1427 E. 4th St. #4, Los Angeles, CA 90033