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Mary Goldman Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by Blaise Drummond, on view from April 28, through June 9, 2007. An opening reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, April 28, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
The American landscape holds a particular fascination for Blaise Drummond. In his first solo U.S. exhibition, the British artist returns to the country where he first reflected on the juxtaposition of architecture and nature. The show is named after the famous Chicago expressway built in the 1930's and home to the Mies Van der Rohe Glass House towers. This symbol of urban idealism, coupled with a desire for man to "return to nature," is key to dissecting Drummond's practice. America, with its history of New World romanticism confronting capitalist expenditure, perfectly exemplifies the tension between natural beauty and man-made tourist attraction. Drummond's paintings inherit pathos for a lost paradise with discretion towards the current state of urban development. And yet the work optimistically envisions a more compatible relationship between human progress and nature.
From graph paper and corrugated cardboard to candy wrappers and blankets, Blaise Drummond uses a collage vocabulary to evoke memory and intensify the visual plane. His paintings of architectural landmarks are set within tranquil forests and snow scenes, peppered with gestural splashes of color. The titles for the works are often culled from sources as diverse as rock albums and Jehovah's Witness literature. Though the compositions appear familiar or conventional, Drummond's use of diverse materials and repeated motifs express deliberation and meticulousness. Furthermore, his subjective aesthetic choices and titular puns come together in a unified form of organized complexity, indebted to human design rather than spontaneity.
Blaise Drummond was born in Liverpool in 1967 and lives in County Longford, Ireland. He graduated from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 1994 and received an M.A. in Fine Art Painting at the Chelsea College of Art in London. Museum exhibitions include the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, the Musée de l'Abbaye Sainte-Croix, Les Sables d'Olonne, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, and Stedelijk Museum, Aalst. Drummond has also exhibited with Rubicon Gallery, Dublin, Galerie Loevenbruck, Paris, and Aliceday, Brussels. The artist was selected three times for the John Moores exhibitions - the Biennial survey of British painting at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. This is his first solo exhibition in the U.S.
Mary Goldman Gallery is located at 932 Chung King Road in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. or by appointment. For further information, please contact the gallery at 213 617 8217 or email info@marygoldman.com. Visit www.marygoldman.com for more information.
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