KOJI TAKEIRECENT WORKS

WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY

BERGAMOT STATION ARTS CENTER2525 MICHIGAN AVE., E-1 SANTA MONICA, CA 90404

P 310-453-0909 F 310-453-0908www.williamturnergallery.com

Andy Moses at William Turner Gallery October 2010by Shana Nys Dambrot

Andy Moses paintings never fail to astonish and seduce. Their prismatic, pearlescent surfaces, whose radiant filigrees are enhanced to dramatic effect by custom-made hyerparabolic canvases, these unearthly, Rococo confections are almost overpoweringly beautiful; in image and color mimicking nature while being in no way natural. But despite, or perhaps due to, their extreme loveliness and blurring of genre-boundaries, talking about them inevitably requires resorting to hybrid comparisons and qualified similes. His sweeping vistas operate on the viewer like the haunting, haunted Akashic landscapes of Friedrich or Turner: evocative, emotional, pictorial. But they are in fact, entirely abstract and modern: psychedelic, artificial, hyper-real. They are as stylized and attenuated as a Rococo ceiling mural (Moses harbors a secret love of Pontormo as a forefather of abstraction in art); but in their boundary-pushing use of cutting-edge painting materials, the most recent paintings are also quite futuristic.

What’s required for transcribing a new visual language might just be a new art-historical semiotic entirely. In a very real sense, Moses is deconstructing the elements of abstraction, ancestors to avant-garde, in order to build it anew, solving ages-old problems of art in new ways. “It’s a tightrope; it’s a paradox; it’s in between Pictorialism and non-figuration. Line is as much a concern for me as color, but there’s no drawing. They have that photodigital, high-def supersaturation of the palette; and as far as optics, there’s really nothing to compare them to. Something can’t be ‘more real’ can it?”

Making the works entails a kind of wrangling of chaos; but as far as those astonishing, opalescent colors, Moses knows what he’s looking for. He mixes for a month then paints in a day. Is that process painting or its opposite? It’s just that after so much time in the lab, as it were, he can predict the physical and optical behavior of his media in relation to the laws of nature. More than a painterly technique, his composition resembles an orchestration of observed natural phenomena: gravity, viscosity, hydrodynamics. He manipulates thickness instead of brushwork, motion instead of gesture, to replicate both natural and transformational processes, forcing idea and matter into a conscious collaboration. Such is the texture of the new visual language Moses is evolving; reaching toward an essential way in which to convey the thrilling, vertiginous simultaneity of those moments in nature when the convergence of abstract aesthetic and emotional possibilities approaches the sublime.

William Turner Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of new sculptures by Los Angeles-based artist Koji Takei. Koji Takei’s work represents a continuing interest in themes of balance and harmony through the deconstruction and reconstruction of found objects.

All of the sculptures in this exhibition were derived from cast-off chairs, whose material and character caught the artist’s eye. Set free from their functional form, as chairs, Takei explores other aspects of their aesthetic nature. Like Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) or Bonsai pruning, these fastidiously reconstructed arrangements seek a heightened sense of the object’s essential nature and history.

Koji Tokei is a native of Japan and trained as a commercial photographer and graphic designer in California, where he operated a successful graphic design and marketing firm for over two decades. Some 15 years ago, Takei began to follow his passion for art. His works have been exhibited at numerous museums and galleries throughout California. This will be Takei’s third solo exhibition with William Turner Gallery.

Untitled, 2010, Stained wood, 41 x 18 x 6”

Tetiaroa, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 36 x 72Untitled, 2010, Wood and enamel paint, 37 x 22 x 5”

Untitled, 2009, Stained wood and metal, 24 x 90 x 12”

Untitled, 2009, Wood, metal and enamel paint, 22 x 49 x 7”

Uncompahgre, acrylic on concave canvas, 62” x 132”

Untitled, 2010, Wood and enamel paint, 37 x 20 x 6”

Untitled, 2009, Stained wood and metal, 18 x 52 x 8”

Untitled, 2009, Stained wood, 36 x 60 x 32

Aqaba, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 45”x 90”Untitled, 2010, stained wood, 39 x 19 x 4”

Untitled, 2010, Stained wood, 41 x 18 x 6”

Untitled, 2010, wood and enamel paint, 19 x 50 x 4”

Traverse, acrylic on hyperbolic concave canvas, 24” x 42”Untitled, 2010, stained wood and fabric, 42 x 21 x 5”

Untitled, 2010, stained wood, 23 x 60 x 5”

WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY

KOJI TAKEI

Birthplace Tokyo, JapanEducation 1978 B.F.A., California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

Solo Exhibitions 2010 “New Works” William Turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA2008 “Isometry” Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA2006 “New Works” Berman/Turner Projects, Santa Monica, CA 2004 “Mottosynthesis” Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2003 “Staying Afloat” Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2001 “Tools of the Trade” Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2000 “Recent Works” William Turner Gallery, Venice, CA 1997 Solo Exhibition William Turner Gallery, Venice, CA 1994 “Musubitsuki” George J. Doizaki Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Selected Group Exhibitions 2009 “Dreams to Dreams” Japanese American National Museum. Los Angeles, CA2007 “The Toy Show” Hunsaker/Schlesinger Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA 2006 “Omage” Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2006 “Art of Design” El Camino College, Los Angeles, CA 2002 “A Thousand Clowns” Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA 2002 Group Exhibition Debra Owen Gallery, San Diego, CA 2000 “Grace in Space” College of the Canyons Gallery, Santa Clarita, CA 1995 “Primarily Small Works” Hunsaker/Schlesinger Fine Art, Santa Monica, CA 1994 “Shapes of Things to Come” Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA

1988 “American Japanese Artists” George J. Doizaki Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Awards 1987 Best of Show, Los Angeles Art Director’s Club 1982 Award of Excellence, Communication Arts 1981 Award of Excellence, American Institute of Graphic Arts 1981 Award of Excellence, Los Angeles Art Director’s Club 1981 Award of Excellence, New York Art Director’s Club Academic Experiences2010 Academy of Art University, San Francisco, CA 2003-present Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA 2000-2007 Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA 1993-1994 Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA1984 California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

Selected Private CollectionsJan Adams, Pacific Palisades, CAAnnina Arthur, Palos Verdes, CADeborha Baroi, Pasadena, CAPeter Behrendt, Beverly Hills, CADon Chavez, Burbank, CAElaine Comess, Los Angeles, CA Darrell DeTienne, San Fransico, CACarol & Roy Doumani, Venice, CAJoanna Drury, Encino, CAJeff Fields, Venice, CAMark Hasencamp, Los Angeles, CABonnie Hughes, Stinson Beach, CAGary Jenkins, Laguna Beach, CAMitchell & Linda Katz, Newport Beach, CAMark Lieberman, Los Angeles, CA Claudette Lussier, Los Angeles, CAIlene Marshall, Pasadena, CAHector & Lisa Martinez, Pasadena, CAKenneth Mirman, Malibu, CAJan & Gene Myers, Marina del Ray, CARichard Oppenheim, Agoura, CAAnita Rosenstien, Beverly Hills, CARobert & Sherma Shelley, Arcadia, CACorrine Shukartsi, Los Angeles, CAMarika van Adelsburg, Los Angeles, CASarelyn Wager, Los Angeles, CASue Wong, Los Angeles, CAJohn Yzurdiaga, Playa del Ray, CA

WILLIAM TURNER GALLERY

BERGAMOT STATION ARTS CENTER2525 MICHIGAN AVE., E-1 SANTA MONICA, CA 90404

P 310-453-0909 F 310-453-0908www.williamturnergallery.com