Kevin Appel

Christopher Grimes Gallery is pleased announce an exhibition of new work by Kevin Appel. This will be Appel’s first exhibition with the gallery. Kevin Appel’s paintings explore the relationship between architecture and the painted image. Using photographs as a ground on which to build his painting, he applies layers of paint that act as screens, compressing the perceived space. The act of looking through one element to another, or the blocking of one impenetrable layer by another has become a hallmark of his paintings. In this new body of work Appel furthers his consideration of the compromised landscape through photographs he captured in the California desert.

In the new paintings, several planes of visual information collide: the abstract application of paint on the surface and a photographic representation of another place and time masked in the background, each layer obliterating the last.

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 studio art at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at University of California, Irvine. Appel’s work has been included in solo exhibitions at Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico (2003) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1999). He has participated in group shows such as California Modern, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA (2005); Tresspassing: 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’s work is in the collections of such institutions as Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, among others.

http://www.cgrimes.com/exhibitions/2013/kevin-appel/