Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to present Los Angeles-based  artist Anthony Pearson’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery this  summer, at its location in Aspen, Colorado. The exhibition will feature  works from Pearson’s Embedments, Etched Plasters, and Tablets  series, each of which capture his sensitivity to the experience of  light, texture, and color. Pearson’s work is powerful in its quietude,  revealing layers of complexity as one explores the surface, patterning,  and material closely and from a range of perspectives and environments.  Pearson’s work feels particularly at home in Aspen, where set against  the rugged landscape and open expanses, his evocations of light and  materiality are further amplified and affecting. Anthony Pearson will be  on view in Aspen from June 27 through July 20, 2019.

The exhibition coincides with the release of the Pearson’s new  monograph, featuring a substantive essay on the artist’s vision and  approach, written by Alex Klein, Institute of Contemporary Art  Philadelphia’s Dorothy and Stephen R. Weber Curator, as well as a wide  selection of images highlighting the range of his practice. As part of  the opening celebrations, on June 28, the gallery will host a talk with  Pearson and Klein, moderated by Heidi Zuckerman, CEO and Director of the  Aspen Art Museum. The talk will be followed by a reception to mark the  opening of the show. 

Pearson’s practice is fueled by a longstanding engagement with the  dichotomies of lightness and darkness—first sparked by his early work as  a photographer. His explorations manifest through a spectrum of  processes with materials such as clay, bronze, and gypsum cement, which  he develops methodically and contemplatively through time to yield a  wide range of visual effects. His innate ability to capture the  sensation of light emanating from deep within his materials positions  him within the trajectory of California’s Light and Space Movement,  which has concerned itself with the effects of form and light on viewer  perception and experience. 

Further underlying Pearson’s practice is an experimentation with  physicality, which results in works that behave in instances as both  sculpture and painting as well as both object and image. This interplay  between formal vocabularies is particularly felt as one experiences and  considers the progression of his distinct series, starting with the Tablets,  which Pearson produced between 2010 and 2014. Abstract sculptural works  that are affixed to the wall, the Tablets appear as soft organic forms  folding onto themselves or as small bundles of volumetric cylinders.  Handcrafted in clay, cast in bronze, and coated with cobalt and silver  nitrate patina, the Tablets actively respond to their  environment, absorbing and reflecting the light within the space. While  their physicality positions them clearly within the trajectory of  sculpture, their placement on the wall retains some suggestion of the  experience of painting. 

Pearson’s development of the Tablets series gave way to an  extensive exploration of the formal possibilities of hydrocal, a gypsum cement, which continues to today. To create the Etched Plasters—the  second of his hydrocal series—Pearson pours the material, mixed with  colored pigment, into a frame and then uses a carbide knife and  custom-made wood guides to make incisions into the surface. The finished  pieces are distinguished by the intricate interplay of line and  density, as the subtle and precise cuts stand in dynamic contrast to the solidity of the hyrocal. Here, Pearson’s work on the surface replicates  the expression of paint on canvas or pencil on paper, while the material itself provides the dimensionality of sculpture—fusing the two  media into a new kind of object. The incisions, which actively read as  line drawings, are executed in rich, arabesque-ing patterns that evoke  vibrant energy and fluid movement. As the mica-based pigments in the  hydrocal catch the light, this sensation is heightened, and the lines  take on the quality of rays of light or wisps of sand flowing through  one’s fingers.                                                    

With his Embedments series, Pearson more fully embraces the  language of free-form gesture, most often associated with painting. In  this most recent series, Pearson pours the differently colored hydrocal  in layers, into a mold backed by a stretched canvas. In instances, Pearson shifts the mold, while in others he allows the cement to settle  organically. This action results in the creation of rich color fields  that weave together to suggest abstract landscapes. In this way, the painterly gesture is inextricably tied to the physicality of the work itself, which is also emphasized by the textural impressions and traces  of fiber filament left on the surface from the stretched canvas that is  removed upon the material’s hardening. These actions shift Pearson’s  work more directly into the space between object and image, with the  formal qualities of painting and sculpture coalescing into a new whole.  At the same time, these newest works retain their sense of light, as they allude to the setting sun and the desert and ocean views of  California.  

Anthony Pearson (b. 1969, Los Angeles) is well-known for his highly  formalized and sensitive use of both process and materials. By  experimenting with the formal limits of photography, where his practice  originated, he found a visual vocabulary rooted in abstraction that  explores the balances between positive and negative, lightness and  darkness. He continues to investigate these dichotomies across a range  of media. Pearson has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Marianne  Boesky Gallery, New York, NY (2018), David Kordansky Gallery, Los  Angeles, CA (2017), the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (2012),  and Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, MN (2008), among numerous  others. Group exhibitions include Tantric drawings: sites of transformation, Drawing Room, London, UK, and Peninsula Arts, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK (2016-17); L.A. Exuberance: New Gifts by Artists, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2016-17); The Sun Placed in the Abyss, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (2016); Variations: Conversations in and Around Abstract Paintings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2014); second nature: abstract photography then and now, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA (2012); and The Anxiety of Photography, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO, and Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin, TX (2011). Pearson lives and works in Los Angeles.   

For more information about Anthony Pearson, please contact Gallery Director Mary Cecilia Mitsch at [email protected] or 212-680-9889. For press inquiries, please contact Alina Sumajin, PAVE Communications and Consulting, at [email protected] or 646-369-2050.