Rise Series

Emerging from Southern California in the 1960’s, the Light and Space movement was pioneered by artists such as Larry Bell, Bob Irwin, John McCracken and Mary Corse. Their fascination with the diffused atmosphere and glowing light of Los Angeles produced works that captured the city’s luminosity through their use of color, light and space, offering a shifting of perspectives and new emotional encounters.

Decades later, we see these conceptual philosophies continue in the practice of Ruth Pastine. Rise Series features vertical and square works from Pastine’s latest series of paintings who continues to explore how the study of color, light and space alter our perceptions and heighten our awareness of self.

The transformational and elusive qualities of light and color manifest themselves uniquely within each painting. Pastine’s saturated Rise Series takes us on a more emotional communion with the interplay of space and light through the study on phenomenology of color, the primary focus of her decades-long practice. Unpredictable combinations from the complementary color systems create luminous cavernous dimensions that throb and pulsate, swelling and constricting continuously with every beat of the heart. The visceral intensity of these paintings is not only striking to the eye, but also penetrating to the marrow of our bones. And the symbiotic relationship between complementary colors offers a remarkable spatial tension with contrasting admixtures of these hues running inversely down their edges. Pastine’s arresting paintings, thus, become spaces for contemplation with each canvas offering a moment of respite from the outside world.

Working primarily with three complimentary color systems as the core of her practice throughout her career, Pastine embraces a spontaneous and rigorous process of painting color upon color on canvas to seek out their infinitely possible chromatic interactions. Taking in the visual phenomenon of these works, conscious attention of the unknown takes hold, and the existential perception of self is questioned.

Rise Series invites us to reconsider ideals about the subjectivity of perception and elements of the sublime through the elusive qualities of color, light and space. Our bodies and spirits are transformed, as the works of Ruth Pastine become conduits bridging the visible to the invisible, tangible to the intangible, the finite to the infinite. They bring unexpected encounters and through their dialogue with us and one another, may enlighten, confound or open up the possibility of discovering something new.