Alex Couwenberg

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tRajectoRyAlex couwenbergmay 4 - may 29, 2011

130 Lincoln Avenue, Suite D, Santa Fe, NM 87501 | p (505) 983-9555 | f (505) 983-1284

www.DavidRichardContemporary.com | [email protected]

tRajectoRyAlex couwenberg

may 4 - may 29, 2011

GalleRy DirectoRs

David Eichholtz & Richard Barger

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FRoNt CovER:

lani

2009, 72" x 66" Acrylic on canvas over panel

PREvIoUS PAGE:

paRty cRasheR


RIGht:

boyo

2010, 48" x 46", Acrylic on canvas over panel

Published on the occasion of the

exhibition, “trajectory”,

May 4 - 29, 2011.

© 2011 David Richard Contemporary, LLC

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I like to see complexity resolved. there’s a certain beauty in an intricate-ly plotted mystery, a Baroque fugue, a Roman floor mosaic, a Dickens nov-el, anything that seems at first to be scattered and random, too filled with separate thoughts and contradictory impulses ever to come together—and then they do, they take what seemed to be chaos and turn it into pattern, they bring what seemed to be arbitrary and make it appear inevitable. that’s part of what I respond to most about the work of Alex Couwenberg, how his is a highly personal art of retrieval and reconciliation, how he skirts the edge of dissolution and wreaks it into hard-won harmony, how he shuffles it—whatever “it” is-- relentlessly to and fro, weighing and adjusting, calibrating and interrupting, a quick swivel here, an unexpected torque there, a whisper of the stability of line tested by a sud-den tonal shift--well, you better bring your lunch, there’s nothing quick and easy about this work, you’re going to have to do some serious looking.

If you’re a musician or a writer or a dancer you can take your audience through these acts of reconciliation in time, time gives you the thread you can follow from beginning to middle to end. But a painter! time is collapsed all within one surface, one rectangle, only the artist knows the layers em-bedded beneath the final painting,

remembers when everything seemed lost, the false steps and conundrums that needed to be rectified and solved, the pivotal moment where it began to come together, the rush of being when all the intricacies began to resolve themselves, that final sense when you were finished, that it was done. that’s how I imagine Alex Couwenberg works, that within his own idiom (and more on that in a bit) he does his ver-sion of the painter’s core archetypal thing: to do something on the surface

of a painting that requires him to do another thing that calls for something else that means he has to do this other thing and so forth until he’s locked in the taut embrace of picture-making that only ends when the damn thing is done.

take, for example, Peep Show. Notice how rarely Couwenberg centers his

alex couwenbergtRajectoRyby james yood

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imagery, it usually falls off somewhat to the right, as if it settles somewhere on the composition where a lot of to-ing and fro-ing had to happen. (this reminds me a bit of how a Scrabble board gets played, sometimes one quadrant gets all the action and an-other seems immobile, frozen, what begins in the very center ends up me-andering away as the game progress-

es.) And while there may be a tenden-cy to privilege Couwenberg’s painterly and linear incident in these works, one should never overlook the color he ini-tially lays down on these canvases. In Peep Show it’s a deep dark gray, a kind of Jasper Johns gray, a gravitas gray that seems solemn and determined, not like the spry tans or cool blues or creamy light yellows or rich browns or even the pale grays or off-whites he’ll use elsewhere. Somehow this first col-or is the first gesture for Couwenberg, the causal gesture, it provides the con-text for what will ensue, somehow this graphite gray from which he can go darker or lighter will motivate the next gesture he will make.

only Couwenberg knows what that next gesture was. It may not even be on the surface of Peep Show any lon-ger, it’s probably not, that gesture itself perhaps effaced by his subsequent ac-tivities, the motival act buried beneath its many progeny. We’re left with the finished thing, the endgame, but only Couwenberg got to play it, there’s a process going on here but we don’t get to see it work itself out, we just get to see it resolved into a kind of hard won but inevitable perfection. But let me tell you how I go about looking at a painting by Alex Couwenberg. I stare at it for a while, and then try to find a fulcrum point in it, some small-ish element somewhere that somehow seems the opening salvo to the whole composition, the little Rosetta Stone that decodes it, the spring lock, the tether, the string that you can pull on to unravel it all. In Peep Show for me it’s the little silhouette of 3/5 of a circle set within the orange field at the low-er center part of the painting. I look at that thin circular line and suddenly everything starts to spin off it, some-times logically, just as you would ex-pect, but sometimes in riffs of such cu-rious curvy inventiveness that it starts to careen about, into the vortex you go, up, down, left, right, solid, transpar-ent, substance and schematic, flatness and texture, interpenetrating areas of positive and negative space that never seem to cease shuffling about. (oK, here are a few of my other tethers, in Lani it’s the little horizontal blue bar a bit to the right of the center, in Cadil-lac it’s the top of the gray cone at the bottom center, in Showist it’s the olive

peepshow


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green area that seems to propel itself leftward, hijack is a tough one, but I can’t take my eyes off that incredibly assertive small swath of orange that makes a mini arc at the right-center of the painting. Sometimes it’s a big thing, this tether, but often it’s a small element, sometimes a little child will lead them.) tension and release, ar-eas of tight energy then radiating and diffusing outward, almost centrifugal in nature, that’s a Couwenberg move, action and echo, a balance always achieved at last.

But so much of the allure of Alex Cou-wenberg’s work resides in the stylistic idiom that his hand and eye and mind always gravitates toward, that is some reflexive part of his being, his way of ordering himself through the world. It’s an incredible communing with the fundamentals of a kind of so cool So-Cal Modernism, a here muted beckon-ing of a giddy California 1960s design, for sources it’s all woofers all the time, Philco tvs meet valley burger joints, Jazz LP covers in a Ford Fairlane, tv antennas from the Brady Bunch house, funny-car decals, the curve and the swerve, like nothing exists but bulbous swivel chairs and sleek hi-fi compo-nents. None of those things actually appear in any of these paintings, but their aura everywhere does, Couwen-berg’s got all this stamped in his DNA, if DNA was only a bit more oval and torqued. It’s not nostalgia, certain-ly not retro, or only marginally and obliquely so, it’s a visual manifestation of time and place, as connected to its context as European Cubism is to the

staccato rhythms of early modern ur-banism. Couwenberg summons the attentive optimism of SoCal design culture, its bold curves and upbeat rhythms, he layers and de- and recon-structs them, he channels them from function to pictorial language because it’s his vernacular culture, because it’s his.

these new paintings, soberly and with exquisite control and attention to detail, appear to me to evoke these things and more. Let’s close with Alt (tether? For me it’s the small vertical greenish rectangle at the bottom cen-ter). It takes you for a skillful spin in and around itself, with thin lines and sweeping arcs releasing and resolv-ing its density in several directions to-wards its edges, a taut image of great concentration then gently dissipating outward. Above all else what I appre-ciate in it and in the work of Alex Cou-wenberg is that balance of tension and release, of passages of such focus and hypersensitivity that I think they can never be escaped--and then suddenly they are, in images that always man-age to negotiate their way through the seemingly contradictory zones of multiple interpenetrative attentiveness and the equanimity of resolution and calm. they’re complexity resolved.

James Yood teaches modern and con-temporary art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he also directs its New Arts Journalism program.

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alt

2011, 24" x 24", Acrylic on canvas

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boyo


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cadillac


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faiRfax


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hijack


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janie jones


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lani


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Makai


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paRty cRasheR


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peepshow


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showist


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sunkist


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b. 1967, Upland, CA

Education:

1997 MFA, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, CA 1995 BFA, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA

Awards:2007 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant

Solo Exhibitions:

2011 "New Paintings," Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco, CA "trajectory," David Richard Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM "New Paintings," Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA "New Paintings," William turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2010 "New Paintings," Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY "New Paintings," oBJCt Gallery, Los Angeles, CA2009 "Waimea," Royale Projects, Indian Wells, CA "Morphic tracis," San Luis obispo Art Center, San Luis obispo, CA "A Bit Left of All Right," William turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA "Singles," Gilman Contemporary, Ketchum, ID "Arcade," Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA2008 “Working Space,” Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, Mo “Bypassing Referents,” Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY2007 “Cosmetically, Aesthetically, Unregrettably,” d.e.n. Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA “New Paintings,” Gilman Contemporary, Ketchum, ID “New Paintings,” Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2006 “New Paintings,” Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA “Black Labeled,” Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA “Alex Couwenberg: a ten year evolution,” University Gallery, CSUS, turlock, CA2005 “de Stad,” Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY “Metropolitan”, 455 Market Street Lobby Gallery, San Francisco, CA “tussenruimte”, Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA2004 “Primo,” Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2003 "Paintings,” Gensler, San Francisco, CA “Paintings; a seven year survey,” Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA 2002 "New Paintings," Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2001 “New Paintings," Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1999 "New Paintings," Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1997 “the hot Rod Series," East Gallery, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, CA1996 "New Paintings," Dillingham/Caples Gallery, Claremont, CA

alex couwenberg

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Selected Group Exhibitions:

2011 "A Generous Spirit," Robert and Francis Fullerton Museum of Art, CSUSB, CA2010 "Karl Benjamin: Under the Influence," Royale Projects, Indian Wells, CA "over Paper," Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, Mo "Line, Curve, Form," David Richard Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM "Claremont Modernism," oBJCt Gallery, Claremont, CA "What", Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2009 "the New Irascibles," AC Projects, Pomona, CA "Rant," Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, CA "Los Angeles Currents," Coturier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA "Enduring Legacy," Claremont Museum of Art, Claremont, CA "oNA2x2," Cypress College, Cypress, CA2008 “Liquid Light,” Museum of Design Art and Architecture, Culver City, CA “Between the Lines,” William turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “15 Years, 15 Artists,” Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA “Art Auction 100,” Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA “the Finish Fetish,” Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA “Keeping It Straight,” Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA “Works on Paper,” Gilman Contemporary, Ketchum, ID 2007 “West Coast Abstraction,” Peter Blake Galley, Laguna Beach, CA “Liquid Light,” DBA256, Pomona, CA “off the Grid,” William turner Gallery, Santa Monica, CA “Paintings Edge,” Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA “Inland Emperors,” DBA256, Pomona, CA orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA “Inaugural Exhibition,” Gilman Contemporary, Ketchum, ID “Summer Group Show,” Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA “Art Auction 12,” Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA “venice Art Walk,” venice, CA “Decade,” Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA “out of Line,” Cal State Stanislaus, University Gallery, turlock, CA “Grey Scale,” Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA “Art Auction = Stimulus,” Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA “Let there Be Light,” Phantom Galleries, Los Angeles, CA2006 “Aligning With Abstract Los Angeles,” d.e.n. Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA “Landscape Perspectives,” Art + Industry, Palm Springs, CA “Summer Abstraction,” Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA “Monotype,” d.e.n. Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA “2nd Gwang hwa Moon International Arts Festival,” Sejong Center, Seoul, Korea “Flow: Fine Lines on Water,” Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA “Flow: Fine Lines on Water,” Lisa Coscino Gallery, Pacific Grove, CA “Recent Acquisitions,” Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA “Border Crossing,” Sopa Fine Arts, British Columbia, Canada “out of Line,” Parks Exhibition Center, Idyllwild Arts Academy, Idyllwild, CA2005 “Inaugural Exhibition,” Sopa Fine Arts, British Columbia, Canada “A Common thread,” Soho Myriad, Atlanta, GA “out of Line,” Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA “out of Line,” Brandstater Gallery, La Sierra University, Riverside, CA “Abstract Los Angeles”, Louisiana tech University Galleries, Ruston, LA “Art Auction 11”, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA “theories: LA Paint,” Post, Los Angeles, CA “venice Art Walk”, venice, CA “Monothon, 2005,” Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA

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2004 “Luster,” Gensler, San Francisco, CA “Abstract Work from the Permanent Collection,” Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA “Continental Divide: LA/NYC,” Planet thailand, Brooklyn, NY “Abstract Los Angeles,” Soho Myriad, Atlanta, GA “20th Anniversary Exhibition,” Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA2003 “No Chaser; Straight Ahead Abstract Painting,” Post, Los Angeles, CA “Group Show,” Dolby/Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA ”Black and White,” Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA "New Paintings," Soho Myriad, Atlanta, GA “venice Art Walk,” venice, CA “Art Auction 10,” Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA2002 "California Dream," Il Museo I Magli di Sarezzo, Brescia, Italy "Summer Group Show," Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA "Sam Maloof and Friends," dA Center for the Arts, Pomona, CA 2001 "New American Paintings Group Show," oSP Gallery/open Studio Press, Boston, MA "homage: Roland Reiss," Claremont Graduate School alumni show, dA Center for the Arts, Pomona, CA "Art Auction 9," Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA "Monothon, 2001," Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA "Sequence," Mt. San Antonio College Art Gallery, Walnut, CA 2000 "Art 2000: Applauding Revolutionary talent," Millard Sheets Gallery, Pomona, CA 1999 "Faculty Exhibition," Mt. San Antonio College Art Gallery, Walnut, CA "Faculty Exhibition," Chaffey College, ontario Museum of Art, ontario, CA1998 "Six Gallery Artist," Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA "Synchronicity," Mt. San Antonio College Art Gallery, Walnut, CA "Contemporary Works of the Ruth Bachofner Gallery," Antelope valley College, Lancaster, CA1997 "Convergent Abstraction," Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA "L.A. Emerging," Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA "Art Auction 6," Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA "3 Weeks in L.A.," Richard heller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA "Recent Paintings," Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA “Fringe of the Fringe,” dA Gallery Benefit Art Auction, dA Center for the Arts, Pomona, CA1996 “42.2 - CGS to Paradiso,” Gallery Paradiso, Newport Beach, CA “Painting and Sculpture,” Art Center Alumni Show, thousand oaks Municipal Art Gallery, thousand oaks, CA1995 “Raw Data,” East Gallery, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, CA1994 "Recent Work," Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA "Youth Culture," Lava Room, Costa Mesa, CA

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Selected Public Collections:

California State University, Stanislaus, turlock, CAClaremont Museum of Art, Claremont, CACrocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CADaum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MoGeorgia tech University, Atlanta, GALaguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CALong Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CAPitzer College, Claremont, CAPomona College, Claremont, CARiverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA

Selected Corporate Collections:

AIG, New York, NYAnalysis Group, Menlo Park, CAApax Partners, Menlo Park, CABalboa Bay Club, Newport Beach, CABaoa Resort, ChinaBellagio hotel and Casino, Las vegas, NvClaiborn and Barksdail, Atlanta, GA the Clift hotel, San Francisco, CAColonial hotel, Laguna Beach, CAFilmore heritage Center, San Francisco, CAFletcher Jones Mercedes Benz, Newport Beach, CAGenentech, San Francisco, CAhotel Commonwealth, Boston, MABank Julius Baer, Los Angeles, CAMandalay Bay hotel and Casino, Las vegas, NvMandarin hotel, Manhattan, NYMcKenna, Long, & Aldridge, Atlanta, GAMetropolitan hotel, Manhattan, NYMGM Grand hotel and Casino, Las vegas, NvMohegan Sun Casino, Uncasville, CtMuseum towers @ Centennial hill, Atlanta, GANeiman Marcus CollectionNishiumeda, tokyo, JapanNordstrom Collectionorrick, herrington & Sutcliffe, Menlo Park, CAour Lucaya Resort, Grand Bahama IslandPeninsula Shanghai Waitan, hong Kong, ChinaRed Rock Resort, Las vegas, NvRitz Carlton, Los Angeles, CARiverhorse Investment, Los Angeles, CARoll International, Los Angeles, CASuncal Inc., Irvine, CAUnited States Federal Reserve, St. Louis, Moverisign, San Francisco, CAvisa USA, Foster City, CAWadsworth Publishing Company 1st Born Entertainment, Santa Monica, CA

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Bibliography:

Walters, Danielle, Beverly hills Lifestyle, "Creating Balance", Spring 2011Roth, David, Square Cylinder, February, 2011California home and Design, "Left Coast Looks", February, 2011Dambrot, Shana Nys, "Flavorpill New York," Alex Couwenberg, "New Paintings," March 2010Artdailey.org, Alex Couwenberg, "New Paintings," March 2010Zimmermann, Mark, Art: theories and Provocations, March, 2010Biller, Steven, Palm Springs Life, "Game on: the "Arcade Paintings", November 2009Nichols, Kimberly, Desert Magazine, "Art For Now", November 2009Melrod, George, Artltd., "Under the Radar," May 2009Myers, holly, Los Angeles times, January 30, 2009harris, Freddie, Sun valley Magazine, "Gallery openings," Winter 2008California home and Design, "Art and Antiques," September 2008Gay, Malcolm, Riverfront times, "St. Louis Art Capsules," May 20, 2008Grossman, Emily, Art and Living, "the Straight take", March 20, 2008the New York Sun, “Brother Culture” January 25, 2008Biller, Steven, Palm Springs Life, “Critics Pick,” January, 2008Davies, Stacy, IE Weekly, “Everything old Is New Again,” January 17, 2008Myers, holly, Los Angeles times, “Like 50’s lounge music, remixed,” August 17, 2007Gleason, Mat, ArtScene, July/August 2007Artdaily.org, July 2007tibbitz, Ashley, Flavorpill, July 17-23, 2007ARtltd., “Pulse,” July 2007Bossick, Karen, Wood River Journal, “Buzzer, Gilman Contemporary”, August 1, 2007Carasso, Roberta, Coast Magazine, September, 2007Frank, Peter, LA Weekly, “Grids Unlocked,” Art Pick of the Week, June 6, 2007Jit Fong Chin, SqueezeoC, “Grey Matters”, January, 2007Walsh, Daniella, orange County Register, “Shades of Gray”, January 14, 2007Carasso, Roberta, Laguna News Post, “Artwaves” January 4, 2007Walsh, Daniella, Riviera Magazine, “the Radar Art” January, 2007Rupe, Cynthia, SqueezeoC, Picks of the Week, January 4, 2007Mckenna, John Page, Palm Springs Life, Winter/Spring 2007Melrod, George, Art Ltd., “Culver City: Chelsea West?” october, 2006Cripps, Mick, Lifescapes, “Artist Profile,” September, 2006Allen, Bobbie, Coastline Pilot, “Seven Abstractionists for summer,” July 6, 2006Frank, Peter, LA Weekly, “Art Pick of the Week,” october 2005Muckenfuss, Mark, Press Enterprise, Riverside Museum Monothon Event, September, 2005Simou, Alexandra, New York Sun, January 26, 2005Kugelman, Kerry, Art Circles, fall 2004Cullum, Jerry, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Review, August 29, 2004Gilbert, Debora, Greenline, March, 2004Gleason, Mat, Artscene, February, 2004Frank, Peter, LA Weekly, “Art pick of the week,” February, 2004Novick, La Rue, Daily Bulletin, February, 2004 Litz, Paige, Los Angeles times, “Going Beneath the Surface,” october 10, 2003Moyle, Andrew, 210 Magazine, october, 2003Nelson, harold, Director, Long Beach Museum of Art, Statement, 2002Alfred, E. Anne, Asst. Director, Riverside Museum of Art, Statement, 2002Dennison, Lisa, New American Paintings, vol. 37, 2001-02Roth, Charlene, Artweek, "Alexander Couwenberg at Ruth Bachofner Gallery," March, 2001 Frank, Peter, LA Weekly, "Art pick of the week," January, 2001

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Visiting Artist / Lecturer:

Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CACalifornia State University Northridge, Northridge, CAPaintings Edge, Idyllwild Arts Academy, Idyllwild, CALong Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CARiverside Art Museum, Riverside, CAotis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CACalifornia State University Stanislaus, turlock, CAIdyllwild Arts Academy, Idyllwild, CAMillard Sheets Gallery, Pomona, CA

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ISBN 978-0-9834078-3-6

PRICE $15.00

130 Lincoln Avenue, Suite D, Santa Fe, NM 87501 | p (505) 983-9555 | f (505) 983-1284

www.DavidRichardContemporary.com | [email protected]

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Alex Couwenberg

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