haleARTS S P A C E is pleased to present the work of Valerie Wilcox and Laurie Katz Yehia. An opening reception for the artists will be held Friday, October 31st from 5-8 PM. The works will be available for purchase through November 12, 2014.
In Valerie Wilcox’s “Constructs,” her works present a re-imagined understanding of our constructed environment, perceptions of our own identity and how our brain works to piece together diverse constituents.
With a seemingly casual cobbling together of disparate bits and pieces, Wilcox has formed these hybrid constructions which don’t quite come together to form a satisfying whole. She often uses humble materials or found pieces that are the imperfect remains or cast-offs, but which are the essential elements, what’s holding us together each in their own right, being parts of the imperfect self. Sculpturally there are these areas that play with the structural idea of space and perception, but not necessarily the reality of it. Ambiguous shapes hover between a two dimensional plane and a three dimensional structure, often nuanced by the effects of light and shadow. Wilcox let’s the viewer consider their own personal understanding of these abstracted forms.
Wilcox’s work at once becomes referential, self-reflexive and whimsical, managing to transcend their base materiality, as her source materials are elevated and imbued with newness of form and function.
Laurie Katz Yehia was born in Northbrook, Illinois. She earned a B.A. magna cum laude with Honors in Art from Wesleyan University in 1978, and a J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Southern California in 1982.
She also majored in studio art as an undergraduate at Stanford University and has studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and Tom Wudl’s studio in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited in California, New York, Connecticut, and Washington.
“My recent work focuses on things as they are, using re-purposed objects, light and other untraditional media. Light, things, and spaces serve as subject, object, architectural element, data, and media. Pieces are independently complete and also are unified site-specifically as installations.
I work in the tradition of painting as well as that of questioning and exploring what constitutes “art” today in context of current sensibilities, technologies, philosophies and consciousness. Objects, charged with energy and history, reflect narrative while serving as formal elements. An enduring focus of painters, light–its effect on perception, as well as its innate, energetic, illusionistic and symbolic qualities–is key to my work . My process cultivates tension between anti-formal and formal, free and deliberate, intuitive and analytical, expressive and conceptual, feminine and masculine.
My work is informed by a great diversity of artists, from Giotto to Magritte, Duchamps, Twombly, Tuttle, Flavin and many others, most importantly Tom Wudl.” — Laurie Katz Yehia
haleARTS S P A C E is a Santa Monica gallery focusing on local emerging artists as well as the emerging collector. They host a number of events throughout the year to engage emerging collectors; from their $100 Art SALE to Art Talks featuring art and design professionals.
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