There is a certain sophistication in the pairing of Los Angeles artists Alex Couwenberg and Lisa Bartleson in their two-person exhibition, “Inform/Form.” Although each artist works in abstraction informed by the legacy of SoCal’s modernist explorations, they are emphatically different. Bartleson evokes the luminous and perception-shifting legacy of Light & Space, her palette dominated by cool blues, magentas and lavender pigments nestled into cast bio-resin. Clashing with this contemplative aesthetic, Couwenberg, often associated with Finish Fetish and Hard-Edged Abstraction, uses fully saturated primary colors, incorporating complements to ratchet things up a notch. Given these distinctions, the two bodies of work harmonize rather than detract from one another.
In Bartleson’s new work she creates an illusionistic depth of field by manipulating the materials beneath th surface. This technique is most vivid in “Volume No. 1” and “Horizon No. 1,” among the most striking works on view, in which a horizontal line of cerulean blue seems to hover in a misty field of violet. Couwenberg also charts new territory in his formal investigations. With a simple shift of emphasis in the compositional strategy from horizontal/vertical stability to diagonal lines and swaths of colors cutting across the surface, he creates a dramatic sense of energy and movement. In addition to the solo works, Couwenberg worked with Bartleson to create small wall-mounted bio-resin works built of complex layered geometries that effectively bridge the two artist’s diverse styles (Launch LA, Miracle Mile).
Originally published in ArtScene (May 2014)