Kevin Appel at Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

Christopher Grimes Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Kevin Appel. Appel’s new series of paintings begin as primary arrangements: cut-out paper forms referencing the portholes of Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale are combined with Appel’s own photographs of fragments of his previous works, landscapes, and images of Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti. These forms are constructed into soft, sculptural collages on the studio wall that are photographed at close range and then printed onto canvas. Multiple layers of geometric and gestural marks are silkscreened and hand painted over these flattened images creating a rhythm within the painting while obfuscating the original subject matter. Appel’s paintings are prismatic collages, an investigation of new and old imagery engaged in a recursive conversation where images and forms are pulled from one canvas and used in another, their intersection hinting at a controlled collapse of utopian ideals.

Appel (Los Angeles, CA, 1967) lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from Parsons School of Design in New York and his MFA from University of California, Los Angeles. He is a professor of art and Department Chair of Art in painting and graduate studies at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at University of California, Irvine. Appel’s work was recently on view in Endless House: Intersections of Art and Architecture, Museum of Modern Art, NY (2016); and his work has been included in the exhibitions Painting in Place, Los Angeles Nomadic Division, CA (2013); California Modern, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA (2005); Trespassing: Houses x Artists, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, CA (2003); Drawing Now, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2002); and Painting at the Edge of the World, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2001). Appel has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico (2003) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1999). His work is in the permanent collections of such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, among others.

http://www.cgrimes.com/exhibitions/kevin-appel