Opening Reception: Saturday, October 4, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

The Peter Mendenhall Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent paintings by Los Angeles artist Daniel Douke. Included in the exhibition will be his highly realistic three-dimensional paintings of common objects such as an Apple computer box, an Amazon shipping/delivery box, or a sheet of home insulation.

Douke’s work seamlessly blends notions of painting and sculpture, realism and abstraction, and representation and reality. In so doing, the works often confound viewers’ expectations of art’s means and ends. The paintings originate from and also bring together elements of three 20th century art movements, Conceptual art, Minimalism, and Pop art. “Marcel Duchamp’s ideas have always interested me,” states Douke, “along with Minimalism’s concept of the specific object and Pop art’s use of common imagery. There is an element of industrial process to my selection of images. I make paintings of things people look at everyday, but don’t necessarily see. They are what I call icons of expendability.”

In 2006, the Luckman Gallery at California State University, Los Angeles, mounted a comprehensive survey of Douke’s work, Daniel Douke: Endless Instant. Curated by Julie Joyce, the exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue under the same name with essays by Joyce and independent writer/curator Michael Duncan.

A full-color, 40-page hard-bound book by New York-based writer/curator/poet John Yau will be published by the Peter Mendenhall Gallery for the exhibition.

An opening reception at the gallery for the artist will take place on Saturday, October 4, from 6 to 8 pm. For further information please contact Peter Mendenhall at (323) 936-0061.