ART CITIES:Santa Monica-Sharon Ellis & Pia Fries

Two artists with different background in education present their solo exhibitions at Christopher Grimes Gallery in Los Angeles. Pia Fries studied sculpture in Lucerne and painting under Gerhard Richter at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1986 and Sharon Ellis that studied at the University of California in 1978 and in Oakland in 1984.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Christopher Grimes Gallery Archive

Sharon Ellis’ evocative approach to landscape painting showcases a vibrant energy pulsing through the natural world. By pictorially manipulating natural environs, Ellis’ paintings touch upon the sublimity of the wild with rich hues, dramatic light sources and marked proportions.  “Intimate Terrain” represents her first ever exhibition of works on paper. While it typically takes one year to make a work on canvas because she applies thin layers of glaze to create the effect of emerging light and colors of exceptional depth and complexity, this change in material and scale allows Ellis to work more spontaneously and offers her the opportunity to explore her ideas with greater fluidity. Using light as the primary medium, Ellis juxtaposes light and dark values, creating seemingly sculptural forms and deep spaces. In Pia Fries’ “seascapes”, roiling seas and capsizing ships taken from the engravings of the Italian artist of the Baroque period, Stefano della Bella, act as the ground over which Fries applies bristling, vibrant color. The gestures of della Bella’s engravings are echoed in Fries’ application of paint while the white, negative spaces proffer respite from the storm. Critics have pointed out that Pia Fries sometimes uses the squeegee to apply paint, like her Gerhard Richter, but the similarity in their method ends there. Fries had said she learned from Richter not any specific theory of painting but the belief that painting was something that “You can do today”.

Info: Christopher Grimes Gallery, 916 Colorado Avenue, Santa Monica, Duration 12/11/16-7/1/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-17:30, www.cgrimes.com