Lisa Bartleson
Biography
1968, Born in Seattle, WA
Education
1991 BA Biology, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO
Exhibitions
2015
Jun, Summer Group Exhibition, FP Contemporary
Mar, Where I Live, FP Contemporary
Jan, 3M, Lancaster Museum of Art and History
2014
“CORE” Group Show, FP Contemporary
LIQUID GOLD, PØST
Inform/Form, Launch LA – La Brea
2013
ART1307, “7 Magnifici anni”, Villa di Donato, Naples, Italy
ART1307, “Through the light”, Villa di Donato, Naples, Italy
The Pio Monte della Misericordia Foundation , Naples
ART1307, “Reflection” presso AMY-D Milano
Untitled, Fresh Paint Fine Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (Sept)
Slow Reveal, Toomey-Tourell Fine Art, San Francisco CA (Aug)
Luminous, MMFA, Palm Deset, CA (March)
2012
Tarfest, LAUNCH LA, Los Angeles CA, (Sept)
Summer of Jack Part III, Katherine Cone Gallery, Los Angeles CA (Aug)
Made In Venice, The Gallery, Venice CA, (July)
Museum of Art and History, Lancaster CA Smooth Operations; Substance and Surface in California Art, May
Flawless Finish Fetish, Susan Street Fine Art, (May)
Impact: Emotions of Color, Virginia Mi
ller Gallery, Miami FL (May)
California Abstract Painting 1952 to 2011, Woodbury College Nan Rae Gallery
2011
Gleam In The Young Bastards Eye, William Turner Gallery, (Nov)
Tarfest, Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA (Sept)
SLAM, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo, CA (Aug–Sept)
How The Light Gets In, Toomey Tourell Fine Art, SF, CA (Apr – May)
What’s New Pussy Cat? Torrance Art Museum, Torrance , CA (Jan)
2010
South Bay Focus, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA, (Nov)
Color, Projects, Pomona, CA, (Aug)
San Francisco Fine Art Fair, Projects, (May 2010)
Red Dot NY, Andi Campognone Projects, (Mar)
2009
Gallery 825, curated by Apsara DiQuinzio SFMOMA, LA, CA (Dec)
Gallery 825, Works on Paper, Los Angeles, CA (Nov)
Raw Interiors’s Hertogenbosch, Holland (solo), (Oct)
Angles Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro, CA (solo), (July)
Art and Architecture, Venice Art Walk, special exhibition, Venice, CA (May)
Cerrulean Gallery, Uncommon Composites, solo exhibition, Dallas, TX(Feb)
L.A. Art Show, Los Angeles, CA (Jan)
2008
Red Dot Art Fair, London
Fine Art and Artists, Georgetown, Washington, D.C. (solo)
William Turner Gallery, Liquid Supercool, Bergamot Station, CA
EIS Studio, Venice Art Walk, special exhibition, Venice, CA
George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (solo)
2007
Art Now, Miami, FL
West Coast Green, mkLotus house exhibition, San Francisco, CA
Dwell On Design, San Francisco, CA
George Billis Gallery, Culver City Artwalk, Los Angeles, CA
Red Dot Show, New York, NY
L.A. Art Show, Los Angeles, CA
EIS Studio, “Art and Sculpture”, Venice CA
2006
EIS Studio, “4 Artists”, Venice CA
Ovolo Contemporary Art, “Openings”, Venice, CA
2005
Fresh Paint, “Connected”, Los Angeles, CA
2004
Built, Soho, NY
2003
Built, Los Angeles, CA
2002
Ron Judish Fine Arts, Denver, CO
MYNT, Denver, CO
Texts of Critics
Il Mosaico del Nuovo Millennio di Cynthia Penna
Tutti i Colori della luce ricavati nella bottega dell’arte – In mostra i lavori di Lisa Bartleson realizzati a Napoli di Tiziana Tricarico
pubblicato su Il Mattino
Per Caravaggio una luce dalla California di Tiziana Tricarico
pubblicato su Il Mattino
Bibliography
Architectural Digest, Dec., 2008
Sunset Magazine, Dec., 2007
Video
ALEX COUWENBERG AND LISA BARTLESON : INFORM/FORM
Film by Eric Minh Swenson. Music by Jon Wheeler.
LAUNCH LA is proud to present Inform/Form, a joint exhibition by Lisa Bartleson and Alex Couwenberg. Inform/Form features two artists, who despite their diverging techniques and motifs are united by their masterful use of color and an appreciation of Southern California’s rich abstract legacy.
Lisa Bartleson’s latest works, part of a series called ‘Gradient’, radiate an infinite and immersive depth. Composed of bio-resin saturated with natural pigments and then poured into forms, these cast pieces display little visual information besides the gradual transition from one shade of color into another. This simplicity however is precisely what makes Bartleson’s new work so memorable. She is the epitome of the Southern Californian ‘Light and Space’ ethos – her works give a sense of light without actual illumination and achieve a kind of depth with color that perspective and other tricks of the trade cannot hope to imitate. For Bartleson these images represent the light she experienced while growing up in Northern Washington, where the atmosphere was often filled with tiny water particles which refracted the sun’s rays to give off blankets of ambient light. Hoping to evoke a similar feeling she created absorptive surfaces that the viewer “looks into rather than through”. The final images are stirring and evocative without being didactic or prohibitive. These gradients could just as easily be a chunk of the planet’s atmosphere or even the progressively darker depths of our oceans – they could be poignant metaphorical devices or maybe – just man-made objects of pigment and resin. Bartleson, in any case, is a generous creator – she invites us to join in the act of creation.
Though Alex Couwenberg shares some of Bartleson’s influences, his paintings also contain traces of the wider cultural phenomena which make up ‘Californian’ identity – things like surfing, skateboarding, as well as West-Coast punk and hot-rods. His geometrical arrangements, built out of layers upon layers of paint, show his appreciation for the hard-edge school of painting and yet also capture some of the essence of the Californian sprawl that surrounds him. The long parallel lines of his surfaces seem like miniature boulevards stretching from the mountains to the sea and his boxy shapes are reminiscent of the utilitarianism found in L.A.’s Art Deco industrial districts. In homage to the ‘Finish Fetish’ movement of the ’60s and ’70s Couwenberg takes a great deal of time to create contrasting textures in his work, from surfaces sanded totally smooth to patches spackled on by pallet knife and run through with a broom to create deep ridges. The unique sense of order and co-relation in his shapes belies the intuitive processes that form them: often beginning only with a color palette in mind, tape is applied over swaths of paint only to be painted over again and again, from orange to black to white and back to black again, until it’s time for layers of tape to be peeled away to expose vivid shapes forms and lines beneath. The works that emerge are striking and full of instantaneous visual appeal.