Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Charles Fresquez- Studies for the Next Generation



Charles Fresquez: Studies for the Next Generation

House Gallery is pleased to present Studies for the Next Generation, an exhibition of new work by New Mexico-based artist Charles Fresquez. In his low-key, clear-headed abstractions, Fresquez marries simple designs, some of which recall the zig-zagged geometry of Zapotec weaving, with a minimal luminosity that riffs on the West Coast’s Light and Space enterprise. As a result, his cast acrylic surfaces have both an earthiness and a calculated luminosity. Studies for the Next Generation opens on March 1 and continues through March 26, 2011.


The artist’s reception, which will coincide with Salt Lake City’s Gallery Stroll, runs from 6-9 PM on March 18, 2011.

Fresquez, who grapples with fairly unwieldy visual legacies—both the history of abstraction and the role of Hispanic American art in the current art world lexicon—, thinks of his pieces as living entities. They respond to their pasts and grow into their futures. Influenced equally by the open, intensely lit space of New Mexico and the science of genetics, his work is loosely modeled after biological regeneration. This current body of work regenerates a past one, moving from a more horizontal, linear approach to abstraction to a gridded one, characterized by diagonals and perpendicular patterns.

All of the works in Studies for the Next Generation are untitled, perfect twelve by twelve inch squares, accessibly small but still assertive. Made of cast acrylic, enamel and silicone, the surfaces are composites of quarter inch thick acrylic parallelograms that have been painted on their backs and sides, giving the illusion of three dimensions and causing colors to cast shadows on each other. These seemingly sculptural geometric shapes have a smartly colored palette that includes reds, blues, oranges and a gratifying array of whites that reflect back on one another and begin to evoke yellows and pinks.

The effect recalls the sublimely “cool” approach of minimalist innovators Larry Bell and Craig Kaufmann. But it also resonates with the unapologetic indulgence in design of artists like Jim Isermann and the judicious weaving of Native American artisans whose angles and shapes feel like narratives even when they tell no explicit story. The patterns in Fresquez’s next generation seem perfectly poised to continue regenerating, or storytelling, forever, which is, ultimately, the point: to create a method of working that continually recreates itself and pushes forward through time.

Fresquez, who holds a Bachelors of Fine Art from the University of New Mexico, has exhibited at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, The Livingroom Contemporary Art Salon in Salt Lake City, the University of New Mexico Art Museum, and the Richard Levy Gallery, among other venues.


-Catherine Wagley

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