Laurie Reid
Eight Days Improv
November 5 - December 19, 2009
Opening reception: Thursday, November 5, 5:30-7:30 PM
BIOGRAPHY
PRESS RELEASE
In her eighth solo show at Stephen Wirtz Gallery, Laurie Reid will be showing a selection of monotypes made during an eight day residency at Aurobora Press in San Francisco. (A different selection of these prints was shown at Aurorbora Press immediately following her residency in 2008.)
Her first foray into making monotypes (she has previously made intaglio prints at Crown Point Press), Reid was interested in exploring the new media and processes made available to her. It quickly became apparent that this technique suited her well and Reid was able to move rapidly through a series of artistic explorations that she likens to improvisational techniques used by musicians. After spending her third day at the press, Reid went to hear her musician-friend John Schott play part of an eight hour improvisation on a Thelonious Monk tune at the Berkeley Arts Festival. “I listened for some time, lost in the music, when I said to myself ‘this is what I’ve been doing all day,’” Reid commented.
Each piece unique, Reid’s monotypes distinguish themselves from her paintings in their use of vivid color: hot oranges, pink and yellows play off of a newly discovered ultramarine violet. Equally new in this body of work is the visual presence of the brush. Typically disguised in her paintings by an abundance of water, here we see incontrovertible evidence of the brush having been dragged through the typically sticky ink: it is clear there is a hand behind this endeavor.
In keeping with her artistic practice, Reid explores themes familiar to those of us who have watched her work over the last fifteen or so years. Once again we find her treading precariously along the boundaries of where and when an image is born. We as viewers are invited to witness where the blank page stops functioning as potential and, through Reid’s intervention, is transformed into an assertion or question, however tentative. White pages become still seas of quivering color; blank spaces are asked to support the weight of the most basic of architectural forms; empty fields are given the chance to brush against a fleeting moment of consciousness.