Opening November 7: Charlene Liu, If It Were A Slow Echo

Charlene Liu: If It Were A Slow Echo
November 7 – December 19, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday November 7, 6-8PM

Taylor De Cordoba is proud to present If It Were A Slow Echo, the gallery’s second exhibition of works on paper by Charlene Liu. The exhibition will run from November 7 – December 19, 2009 with an opening reception for the artist on Saturday, November 7th from 6 - 8PM.

In her new works on paper, Charlene Liu continues her interest in the natural landscape, abstracting directly from overlooked and diminutive moments of growth and decay. Many of the works allude to the vanitas of Dutch and Renaissance still-life paintings. The show’s title, If It Were a Slow Echo, recalls the transitory moments of sensory experience and the repetition of motifs that slowly weaves together patterns, lines, and color to the brink of chaotic excess. Combining collaged prints and traditional painting techniques, Liu layers, stains, and composes her paintings; interminably dissolving the transition between figure and ground. It’s an unpredictable and slow reveal with the effect of a quiet, amnesiac sense of disorientation.

In this way Liu’s work rocks back and forth between stasis and activity, order and entropy, becoming and receding. Her color palette operates similarly; in several works on paper, a subdued pastel palette resembles the color of an injury – a bruise or an infection, more than the onslaught of spring. Polka dotted hole punches appear as barnacles or parasites, traversing the picture plane at an exponential rate, bubbling and swelling in tandem with twisted brambles.

Born in Taiwan in 1975, Liu earned her MFA at Columbia University in 2003. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art in Cleveland (2008), Taylor De Cordoba in Los Angeles (2007 and 2009), Virgil de Voldère in New York (2006), and Andrea Rosen Gallery, also in New York (2003). Liu is an assistant Professor at the University of Oregon, Eugene.

Charlene Liu: If It Were A Slow Echo

Cinch, 2009
mixed media on paper, 48''x34''

Cloud Fruit, 2009
mixed media on paper, 30''x30''

Viridian, 2009
mixed media on paper, 15''x11''

Bruise, 2009
mixed media on paper, 48''x34''

L.A. Confidential - October 2009

The Gallerist: Native Angeleno Heather Taylor is part of the reason the Culver City art scene is alive and thriving. By Victoria Namkung

As the Co-Owner and codirector of the contemporary art gallery Taylor De Cordoba - which is part of the vibrant Culver City Art District on South La Cienega - Heather Taylor wears many hats. In addition to discovering new talent and representing LA artists such as Kimberly Brooks, Jeana Sohn, Claire Oswalt, Frohawk Two Feathers and Chris Natrop, Taylor throws some of the best opening parties in town (which are always open to the public). We caught up with the gallerist to talk art, fashion and food.

Chris Natrop - Cloud Machine Exhibition - Miami

Chris Natrop to exhibit new work at Diana Lowenstein Fine Art, Miami, FL. He will be showing new acrylic sculpture and a film in their project space. Cecilia Paredes will be exhibiting in the main space.

PRESS RELEASE
Originally from Milwaukee, Chris Natrop is an installation-artist based in Los Angeles. He earned his BFA at the Art Institute of Chicago. He has had solo exhibitions and been included in group exhibitions throughout the country. His work has been featured in publications such as Art in America and the New Yorker. Natrop was the 2007 recipient of the Pulse Prize from the Pulse Art Fair in New York.

While known primarily as a cut paper artist, Natrop has begun integrating a variety of other material into his work. Transparent plastics, video projection and multi-channel audio are often employed alongside works of intricate, hand-cut paper to create fully immersive environments within gallery and museum spaces. The viewer is encouraged to enter these room-sized installations to directly experience the realm the artist has set up where elements of light, shadow and form coalesce into a fully unified world. Most of the individual components are hand-cut in the artist’s studio and then custom-arranged for a particular exhibition space. For his works on paper, each piece is spontaneously created without the use of patterns or pre-drawing—this stream-of-consciousness approach is, in fact, the crux of the artist’s practice. Graphic silhouettes emerge from a meditative-channeling activated by the repetitive practice of cutting paper. Natrop works on enormous sheets of Lenox 100 drawing paper stretched out vertically on his studio wall. Wielding a standard utility knife, he spontaneously cuts away at the paper to create a hybrid of landscape imagery. Natrop’s free-form process of “knife drawing” reveals the negative space by removing the emptiness in-between forms. Often an amalgam of things previously observed, the graphic nature of the work becomes a freeze-frame of Natrop’s own direct surroundings revealing the artist’s particular sense of place. In many cases one feature will be multiplied over and over, resulting in a dense layering of a single element. A multiplicity of water droplets, crawling vines or cracks in the pavement may be rendered and reworked within each installation.

Emotional forces further contextualize the work within this structure: feelings of anticipation, apprehension, disorientation or joyfulness often encapsulate the work’s inherently myopic narrative. This fusion between internal, emotional space and the external, physical landscape continue to be the framework for much of Natrop’s practice.

Chris Natrop in INFINITY group exhibition

"Infinity", curated by Andrew Schoulz, is a group exhibition of artists whose practices or aesthetics relate to the many facets of the infinite. The Vastness of this concept will be explored through painting, drawing, photography, and 3D multi-media installation. The subject matter as well as the medium will vary greatly. Some artists work may be a more literal representation of this subject, suggestive of such things as mathematics, space, time, technology, abstraction, pattern, or repetition, while others have chosen to address the opposite or "finite", such as fragility, mortality, the temporary, and even doomsday scenarios.

The show features original work by:

Ryan Travis Christian
Richard Colman (appears courtesy of New Image Art, LA)
N. Dash
Noah Davis (appears courtesy of Roberts and Tilton, LA)
Chris Duncan (appears courtesy of Baer Ridgeway, SF)
Andres Guerrero
Joseph Hart
Andy Diaz Hope (appears courtesy of Catherine Clark, SF)
Xylor Jane (appears courtesy of CANADA, NYC)
Butt Johnson (appears courtesy of CRG gallery, NYC)
Chris Natrop (appears courtesy of Taylor de Cordoba, LA)
Aaron Noble
Hilary Pecis (appears courtesy of Triple Base Gallery, SF)
Andrew Schoultz (appears courtesy of Roberts and Tilton, LA)
Ryan Wallace (appears courtesy of Envoy Enterprises, NYC)

Opening Reception is Saturday, October 10th, from 7-10pm.

Free Valet and Beverages will be provided.

Clare Vivier & Dream Collective Sample Sale

Clare Vivier Sample Sale
introducing Dream Collective

Thursday October 1st, 2009, 7-9pm

2660 S La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles
(310) 559-9156

The Sample Sale will feature timeless artisan handbags and accessories of Clare Vivier and introduce Dream Collective, the newest line of high end costume jewelry by Katherine Bentley.

rsvp to info@taylordecordoba.com

L.A. FASHION BLOOM IN SEPTEMBER ISSUE OF ANGELENO

Angeleno Magazine
September 2009

Gallerist-cum-fashionista Heather Taylor hosted a multi-designer installation at her La Cienega gallery to benefit P.S. Arts - spotted were local seam-stars Gregory Parkinson, Jesse Kamm, Clare Vivier, and Wren's Melissa Coker. (Pages: 84 & 86)