Annell Livingston: Painting Geometry – Fragments – Change

d. m. allison gallery presents the exhibition Annell Livingston: Painting Geometry – Fragments – Change. Preview reception Thursday, July 9, 6pm-8pm. Opening Saturday, July 11. On view through August 8.

About Annell Livingston:

Livingston is a native of Houston but has been living in Taos, New Mexico since 1994. Livingston has exhibited throughout the United States and abroad as well as the notable Lynn Goode Gallery here in Houston.

Annell Livingston’s work visualizes the boundaries between the sciences, philosophy, and spirituality, as we grapple with our understanding of our species and the universe in which we live. It is only within the last year that neuro-scientists have been able to actually film the mind at work as it processes in levels within the cerebral cortex and document the pattern recognition that allows us to not only recall images from the past but map out the future.

As sapiens this characteristic gives us the ability to introspect like no other species, and sitting before Livingston’s work we might recall the eastern traditions of meditation and spiritual awareness. Livingston’s work can strip away the layers of the usual, revealing the levels of awareness before the literal consciousness of a “real world” and preconceived concepts that often suppress the imagination.

Livingston presents us with something meditative and hand painted , taking us on a journey preceding the conscious opinion, down into the precursors of an aware thought, and lets us float for a few moments in the abyss and greatness of our uniqueness.

DMA – July 2015

ARTIST STATEMENT:

From the artist: It is the idea behind the work that dictates the image and the idea behind Fragments, Geometry and Change, is based on the observable phenomenon in nature of changing light and color. These works parallel nature but do not directly reflect it. The work is hard edge and I choose the medium of gouache for its’ inherent flatness and its’ intense color.

My experience of the world (memory, or thought) is not as a whole, but in fragments, which are part revealed, part concealed. The final image does not dictate what the viewer should think, but allows a place for the viewer to think and suggests a different way of viewing the world.

Compositions are based on geometry, breaking the picture plane into many pieces, and change in color, value, temperature, or intensity. These changes can be seen as the eye moves from top to bottom, bottom to top, or from side to side. It is a mode of perception, a multidimensional language, which because of its simplicity has immediacy, and spontaneity that is distinct. It is a foundation for an art of limitless associative possibilities. Through this process I can explore simultaneously the mysterious spaces between inside and outside, color field and image, figuration and abstraction, two and three-dimensional space.

Pictured: Fragments G&C #178 , guasche on watercolor paper, 30″x 30″ (detail above, full image below).