20 Oct 2007 to 17 Nov 2007
Tuesday - Saturday, 12 pm - 6 pm
Opening Reception : Saturday October 20, 8-11 pm
Merry Karnowsky Gallery
170 South La Brea Avenue
90036
Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles, CA
California
North America
p: 1 3239334408
m:
f: 1 3239354406
w: www.mkgallery.com
Merry Karnowsky Gallery proudly presents Escape to Darlingtonia, a solo exhibition by internationallyrecognized Los Angeles painter, Camille Rose Garcia. Through a series of new paintings, Garcia explores our need to reacquaint ourselves with the magical and mysterious realm of the wilderness.
Garcia's palette is borrowed from the colors at dusk: deep lavenders, midnight blues and inky blackberries, capturing those fleeting moments reflected in the sky before everything shifts to darkness. These colors are juxtaposed with bright magentas and yellows found in tiny wildflowers. In one painting, two campers roast marshmallows inside the giant head of an elk, taking refuge in the benevolent power of the forest. In another painting, the Lilliputian Darlingtonians escape the madness with the help of an enormous white swan and magic umbrella.
A sensitive observer to the dramas of life in the surreal-fantasy world, Garcia's twilight landscapes are populated by animistic sages with human figures that create new compositional dioramas. Simultaneously thoughtful and intuitive, these paintings demonstrate the artist's keen ability to challenge and extend painterly conventions, and in turn, expand the definitions of formal pictorial space. Whether with figurative or abstracted elements, the artist continues to reinforce the sinuous power of the painted line, whatever its extraordinary hue. Escape to Darlingtonia reflects Garcia's willingness to experiment and to change -- regardless of the artistic struggle that may ensue.
Garcia received a Masters of Fine Arts from The University of California, Davis. A solo mid-career survey of her work was shown at the San Jose Museum of Art in May 2007. Three books of her work have been published, her children's book, The Magic Bottle, 2006, published by Fantagraphics Books, The Saddest Place on Earth, 2005, published by Last Gasp Publishing and Grand Central Press, and Tragic Kingdom, 2007, published by Last Gasp Press and The San Jose Museum of Art.
Garcia's work has been featured in Flaunt Magazine, Nylon, Paper Magazine, Modern Painters, Art Prostitute, Juxtapoz Magazine and The Los Angeles Times. Her art has been exhibited in Spain, Germany, France, and Italy, as well as numerous cities in the United States.