JULY 9 - AUGUST 29, 2020
GARY LANG | CONCENTRIC SQUARES
JULY 9–AUGUST 29, 2020
GARY LANG I CONCENTRIC SQUARES
SQUARE PAINTINGS
Gary Lang, CONCENTRICSQUARESIX, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches
Gary Lang's Studio, Ojai, CA
McClain Gallery is pleased to present an online exhibition of recent paintings by California-based artist Gary Lang (b.1950 in Los Angeles, California). Lang's Concentric Squares offer a muscular, contemplative rigidity, as a counterpoint to the poetic infinitude of his circle paintings. The assertive, rapid-paced execution of each four-cornered chamber possesses its own identity, actualized through color and texture. Each square's exalted center penetrates the observer's optical space, asking us to start from the inside and work our way out, both physically and metaphorically.
In embracing a square format, these new paintings are inevitably in dialogue with such 20th-century icons as Josef Albers and Richard Anuskiewicz. Like Lang, both artists were concerned with color theory and interaction and the mechanics of vision and optical effects. Now, it seems, Lang has added a spiritual resonance to the legacy of square paintings.
Gary Lang
CONCENTRICSQUAREFIVE, 2020
acrylic on panel
30 x 30 inches
Gary Lang's Studio, Ojai, CA
"March of last year, I began painting Black and White Circles, considering how, where, and in what form light appears with the reduction of color. Finding pattern and structure through a more restricted lens, like listening to a solo piano in favor of full-on orchestra, juggles and defines the singularity and stark elegance of pattern breathing. At the same time, I began painting 30" CONCENTRIC SQUARES which I have been furthering in my Ojai Studio as well as in NYC, where I painted 13 SQUARES last fall. The SQUARES are a more rapid-fire, aggressively paced contemplative tool/ ICON, consistent with the CIRCLE, an edgier muscular sublimity".
–Gary Lang
"First and foremost, the work I do is about seeing, being committed to exploring the connection of the eye, brain, and heart. It's about the place seeing can take us, both psychologically and spiritually."
- Gary Lang
Gary Lang
CONCENTRICSQUARETWO, 2020
acrylic on panel
30 x 30 inches
Gary Lang
Photograph by Robert Hoffman
ABOUT GARY LANG
Gary Lang is an internationally exhibited artist, his work has been featured in more than seventy solo exhibitions in the United States, Austria, France, Japan, The Netherlands, and Spain. Born in Los Angeles, he is a painter in acrylics, lecturer, sculptor, and muralist. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, earned a BFA degree in 1970 form the California Institute of Arts and an MFA degree from Yale University in 1975. In the 1970’s he lived in Barcelona on a Fulbright/Hayes Travel Grant and lived in New York and Los Angeles before settling in Ojai, CA. Lang’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Portland Museum of Art, ME; and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL; Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, MI; Gemeentemuseum den Haag, The Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; Plains Art Museum, Moorehead, MN; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; Museum of Art Contemporain, Angers, France. In 2015 he received the Arts & Letters Award and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in NYC, and in 2017 he received the Francis J. Greenburger Award. Lang currently lives and works in Ojai, CA.