Between the Figurative and the Abstract – Margaret Lazzari at Billis Williams

Posted on by Diversions LA

The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.

                                                                                                                                                Alberto Giacometti

Margaret Lazzari’s recently closed compelling solo exhibit The Space of Color at the Billis Williams Gallery showcases mysterious paintings that exist in the space between figuration and abstraction. These works are psychologically disorienting as Lazzari plays with the viewers expectations of spatial relationships.

A case in point is Autumn 2024, where sky and fall foliage appear to be reflected in a shimmering watery surface. At the same time, in the lower right corner, a dark shadow appears both on the surface but also like a hole disrupting the picture plane.  It speaks to what may be lurking underneath. The title may be a clue to the meaning and context of the piece. Autumn is a transitional time from the carefree days of summer to a frigid winter and functions as a poignant metaphoric allusion to the later stages of one’s life.

Tantalizing ambiguity abounds in Lazzari’s glorious paintings and is evident in the operatic, visually stunning painting entitled Venus 2023. The surface here crackles with heat and energy. The flickering brushstrokes climb up the canvas like flames reaching for the sky and the sublime, highly saturated color dazzles. The title suggests the heat and passion of erotic love but in this age of wildfires, this intensely beautiful work looks like a dangerous conflagration reminding one of the dangers of climate change.

Then, as if to soothe the soul, there is the stunning painting, The Calm, 2024 with its dramatic deep horizon, orange-tinged sky flowing towards the viewer and smooth, watery surface reflecting swirling clouds. This work channels the sublime landscape painting of the nineteenth century Romantic painters that focused on emotion, evoked by the wonders of nature.

Lazzari is a masterful colorist whose brushstrokes and mark making are robust, varied and vigorous, creating engaging paintings that play with the viewer’s sense of space, orientation and emotions.

  • Nancy Kay Turner; photos by Nancy Kay Turner and as provided by the gallery 

 

 

Bryan Ida – New Exhibition at Billis Williams Gallery Goes Visually and Emotionally Deep

Posted on by Diversions LA

Bryan Ida, left, with galleriest Tressa M. Williams, right

Bryan Ida creates art that sings with meaning. It comes as no surprise that he once majored in music composition before turning to fine visual art.

His astonishing use of minute and meaningful words to shape fascinating, rewarding images of people – such as several such works recently exhibited in the group exhibition Bridging the Pacific at Torrance Art Museum, is just one way in which the artist expresses rich feeling and creates compelling work. Ida’s intensely detailed, powerful, and meticulous ink on panel works there depicted a very personal story, that of his mother and father, being forcibly “evacuated” from the San Francisco area in 1942, when Japanese Americans were torn from their homes and livelihoods due to World War II-fueled, race-driven paranoia. The delicate and precise nature of that work is that of an artist both empath and activist.

In his new exhibition, his fifth solo show at Billis WIlliams, Ida’s exhibition DEEP is entirely different, yet equally suffused with understanding, compassion, and purpose. Here, he goes to the heart of the human relationship with the natural world. Works are from two separate series,  one of which is filled with vivid color and geometric lines, the other is muted in palette, yet glowing, in  intimate, moving depictions of animals in a twilight sky.

The work takes on the complex beauty of the natural world,  and how human existence – as currently exercised – direly effects it.  Ida’s landscapes feature sliced images, as if viewed through slatted blinds, or seen through the limited vision that humans are presently capable of viewing the natural world. Vivid orange leaves are dissected by slats, as are startling emerald and chartreuse grasses and trees. Some images include intensely touching depictions of animals, such as the orangutan above or tiger below. The colors are vibrant, blunted only by their dissection.

The “broken” images spell out the dichotomy between how humans view and treat the natural world, as well as the earth’s innate lovliness.

With the artist’s Fading Light series, above, depicted animals emerge gradually to the viewer, as if transcending a twilight fog or thick, moonless dusk. The lack of illumination speaks to endangered species, extinction, and man’s disregard for other creatures. Yet, within each image, within each sensitive and almost angelic animal face, there is a glow, as if a facet of light had permeated a black diamond. There is still a ray of hope, if we will catch it.

 

Both series are not only masterfully beautiful but brimming with both sorrow and the ecstatic. Nature stands at the brink of a cataclysm caused by human carelessness and greed. As Ida says  “In the name of human advancement and expansion the cost to animal species and the environment is deep and irreversible. The true measure of a civilization is in its compassion and empathy, not in its ability to consume.”

In the face of loss and adversity, the flora and fauna, the creatures that share our world, are waiting for us to act and end the destruction our relentless quest for conquest has wrought. Ida presents the message without prosthelitizing, creating lush and poetic works that give viewers both thoughtful pause and thrilling beauty.

Experience the empathy and ecology and the consummate wonder in this exhibition – and let its meaning resonate.

Also at Billis Williams, see Stephen Wright’s liquid luminosity, in Beach Break in Gallery 2, all euphoric mid-sea sunshine and light in motion.

Both DEEP and Beach Break are on display through June 3rd; the gallery is open Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. -5 p.m.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis and provided by the gallery