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"New Painting" is Ronald Chase’s first public exhibition in many years. Concerning this, he says: “My work has always been informed by my early visual obsessions: a love of drawing; an attraction to bas-relief; the patina that nature and decay create over time; the complex organic patterns found in cobble stones, fallen leaves and such. I have been drawn often to the grid to bring a sense of order to my work, or used various suggestions of the classic shapes that I feel form the underlying structure of our visual world—the circle, square, rectangle and triangle.
I consider my work to be about process. I start with a visual idea that I let grow with experimentation and variation. I may work on a series drawing or paintings for years, returning and modifying the original idea. I always imagined my work as abstract painting that had just be excavated from the ground many years from now.
For the last decade, I worked with ideas suggested by my nostalgia for modernism––the bas-relief was created by multiple canvases or by folding and drawing on paper. But in 2011, I reassessed the ideas that moved through my work since the ’60’s and realized the grid was the structure I constantly returned to. It gave me new energy, and I now am totally absorbed in the kind of relief’s that can be made by over-laid paint, an underlying structure, and the way time and the elements (especially rain) causes the grid to become battered and uneven. Bright color begins to pop out but the whites and grays dominate.”
Ronald Chase has exhibited nationally and internationally for over 50 years. His works are included in many prominent public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Aside from his painting, he is also well known for his photography, films, and theatrical work. He lives and works in San Francisco.
The exhibition dates are June 1 - July 20.
Opening Reception at 7pm on June 1st
Don Soker Contemporary Art
80 Sutter Street
San Francisco, CA 94104 USA
Tel: 415.291.0966
email: donsoker@yahoo.com
