June 2009

Joe Davidson, Michael Giancristiano, Michael Hebden and Matthew Alexis

By Debra Koppman
Previews Editor

The exhibition Four Solo Shows at Gallery 825 will provide a look at multiple approaches to sculpture and installation with a novel use of materials. Joe Davidson's Hanging Garden, composed of roughly 1,500 unpainted, cast plaster sunflowers hanging from the main gallery's ceiling, will provide a chance for viewers to immerse themselves in the experience. Whiteness, as opposed to sunny yellow normally associated with the flowers, will envelop visitors to the sculptural garden, adding a layer of disorientation.

This dizzying sensibility is also inherent in Michael Hebden's ...once were trees. The works included here share a similar structure, orientation and material base; made from ebony, willow, brass and concrete, the free-standing tree-like works range in height from 21 inches at the tallest to 13 inches at the shortest. Each has a narrow willow branch emerging form a semi-circular base on the floor. Attempting to conjure the spirit of trees, Hebden's reflections on his work refer to the possibility of arboreal memory, or trees as a holding space for mythology, religious interpretation and a collective human longing for redemption.

Michael Giancristiano describes Barren (Traversing the Pits of Despair) "as a tactile exploration of emptiness and paralyzing indecision resulting from traumatic experiences." Viewers' experience of the work may or may not correlate with the artist's intentions. Suggestive of desert landscapes, the interesting use of materials results in elegantly crafted works, pointing to hidden possibilities rather than desperate emptiness. Giancristiano intensively sands plywood so that the revelation of under-layers of laminate creates imagery. Contrasting wood grain between the untouched and sanded layers suggests mountains or dunes. The process has the potential to suggest meaning, like a harsh desert, harboring richness in its subtle array of life forms and water-bearing plants.

Surprise, disorientation and new possibilities for materials carry through in Matthew Alexis's Color and Flow. Alexis uses paint as a sculptural material, forming row upon row of narrow strips and confounding one's ordinary expectations of the possibilities of paint. These brightly colored bands are then laid over and under one another in web-like structures of various sizes, like a weaving of paint and sculpture.

Four Solo Shows: Joe Davidson, Michael Giancristiano, Michael Hebden and Matthew Alexis will be on view June 27 through July 24 at Gallery 825, Los Angeles Art Association, 825 N. LaCienega Blvd., Los Angeles.