Advertisement

La Cienega Area

Share

The tall rectangles of solid color Roy Thurston paints are dense, crisp blanks that unexpectedly soften with prolonged viewing. Rooted in the light and space tradition, the artist uses commercial lacquer colors that are thick, rich and unsettlingly difficult to pin down. From one angle a painting will appear a dull brown geometric scab, from another, it radiates the glossy deep reddish hue of fresh blood.

Incised across each painting’s surface are precise, needle-sharp horizontal or vertical lines that spread out reflected light and tenderize the hard, sanded surface. These near invisible lines fuzz color into a softness that belies the painting’s formal geometry. On one almost black painting, Thurston filled grooves with bright blue pigment and burnished the entire surface. It shines like fresh asphalt trailing oily neon highlights.

Comfortably mining the art-as-experience field that nurtured artists like Larry Bell and Robert Irwin, Thurston’s paintings also recall the analytic painting of Robert Ryman. Devoted strictly to color and surface, they push the parameters of those two elements to make painting an object of formal as well as visual contemplation. (Kiyo Higashi Gallery, 8332 Melrose Ave., to Dec. 30.)

Advertisement
Advertisement