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Yvette Gellis

Yvette Gellis in the Project Room (1629 18th Street, studio #2)
Aqueous/Igneous
October 17-October 30
Opening reception Saturday, October 17 6:00 PM-9:00 PM

Resident artist Yvette Gellis’ project entitled, Aqueous/Igneous is a continued investigation and outgrowth of her practice as a painter. By expanding the idea of taking painting into a three-dimensional space and challenging the distinctions between installation, painting and environment she is able to resist the constraints of the spatial limitation of the canvas, and redesign the work within the given space. Evolving from her recent Public Art Installation in NYC for the Conflux Festival, this project sublimates the ideas of immersing the viewer into an abstract painting. Surrounded on all sides of the work the artist uses a wide repertoire of paint handling and mediums to help transition and connect into a cohesive state. The architectural space is restructured making connections between walls, shapes, and floating color - as if it is lifted out of the painting encircling the viewer.  The 3-D painting fills the viewer’s vision from every perspective allowing ones awareness of his or her own participation in the artistic process.

Debuting in 18th Street’s project room, Gellis’ installation is committed to the psychological aspect of color as noted by her usage of chromatic shades of blues, purples and other lurid hues. The objects and color function as a heroic mark, tweaking the everyday visual world, and provoking considerations of seeing one’s immediate environment, the everyday world, in a significant new way.

About Yvette Gellis

Yvette Gellis has studied abroad at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Aix-en-Provence; at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts; and has recently received her MFA from Claremont Graduate University’s School of Art. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles.

Gellis’s first solo exhibition at Kim Light/LightBox Gallery focused on works in mixed media on canvas, which depict painterly exchanges between massive gestural marks and subtly-rendered architectural spaces. Frothy, overcast glazes are sliced through with the characteristic sun-bleached tonalities of Southern California light. Broad swatches of pastels and stark neon
colors frame light, airy grounds. The force of these works lies in the rendering of this dynamic between dense
forms and vast open space.

http://www.yvettegellis.com

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