Sarajo Frieden – where the light gets in
Carol Sears – Jigsaw
January 14 – February 25, 2017
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, January 14, 6-9pm
Sarajo Frieden – where the light gets in
Carol Sears – Jigsaw
January 14 – February 25, 2017
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, January 14, 6-9pm
Launch LA is excited to announce its upcoming solo exhibitions by Los Angeles-based artists Sarajo Frieden and Carol Sears.
where the light gets in showcases Frieden’s vivid compositions of figurative abstraction in a complex balance of color and form. Organic patterns of mosaic leaves, or flower petals in soft lavender and copper lay against a linear grid in lime and umber in an unpredictable balance of complexity.
Each painting is often layered with a multiplicity of visual vocabularies mining the history of abstraction, textiles, non-Western cultures, and digital culture. Frieden describes her work as a place to practice this juxtaposition of discordant images, explore spirit and complexity, in an ongoing investigation into what it means to be human.
The cultivated chaos of Sears’ work takes a new approach in Jigsaw venturing into bolder jewel tones and interlocking abstracted forms. Each piece emanates feelings of nostalgic midcentury California in their palettes and forms, but are also referential to Sears’ Australian heritage that draws from Aboriginal art. The mixture of these two influences becomes a new vein in which her technique thrives, retaining a memory for her previous figurative work and abstracted landscapes while standing in their own right as something more.
Each piece of the Jigsaw series mirrors moments in our lives and worlds that are rife with detail, hazy from memory, and from radically different times, culminating in a piece of artwork that clicks a sublime experience into place. The soft gray backgrounds juxtaposed with louder colors are relatively new to Sears’ oeuvre, encapsulating a visual and stark contrast between these moments that exist in our memories.
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Sarajo Frieden was born in Oakland, California and raised there and in Los Angeles, where she received a degree in Painting and Printmaking from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has exhibited throughout California in Los Angeles, Pasadena, Santa Monica, San Diego, Torrance, San Francisco, and Berkeley; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and New York, NY. She has shown internationally in Melbourne, Kyoto, Rome, Naples, Paris, St. Chamas, London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Berlin, Amsterdam, and South Korea where her work was shown at the Busan Art Fair. In addition to the Golden Foundation Residency, she was a recipient of the Zeta Orionis Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT. She has worked for several decades as a designer and illustrator, where her work has appeared in many different media and publications and won numerous awards.
Carol Sears was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1942. In the early 1960s she studied at Sydney’s prestigious Julian Ashton Studio. Sears moved to San Diego in 1965 where she was employed in the newly established art department of the University of California, San Diego. There she came into contact with experimental artists such as John Baldessari, Miriam Schapiro, Harold Cohen, and Newton & Helen Harrison. Since 1972, when she moved to Los Angeles, Sears studied life drawing at UCLA and sculpture at the Claire Hanzakas studio while exhibiting and pursuing independent studio work of her own. Sears was recently named by LA Confidential Magazine as a top artist to watch after her solo exhibition at Lancaster MOAH.