GIBSON CONTEMPORARY

I want to share with you the recent work of Josh Peters , whom I first met in 2010, when he was living and working in Northampton, Massachusetts, taking a break from his workaday life to devote himself to his painting. His studio was housed in the same building where I had organized a group exhibition at a printmaking studio. A mutual friend had recommended him to me. Never one to pass up a possibly interesting encounter, I agreed and dropped by the next day when I had some time to spend. I was not disappointed. In recent years Peters has moved from New York to Los Angeles, where he has seen some definite career high points: a solo exhibition at ACME Gallery in 2013, having his work added to the Artist's Pension Trust, and a forthcoming inclusion in the Pacific Coast Edition of New American Paintings, selected by Apsara DiQuinzio, the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Berkeley Art Museum. His work has changed considerably from then to now, but a cert

The Paintings of Elsie Kagan Elsie Kagan's painting is a form of revelation. It commingles a search for beauty with a sustained effort to manifest how reason, reality, and temperament can aid us in the creation of something new. Mining the history of artistic expression, searching for touchstones and wellsprings of inspiration, and being able to turn that research into a living and breathing new expression that can aptly invigorate the contemporary perception of beauty, is what Kagan does in her work. Kagan's is not only a technical virtuosity but an educated way of painting that refuses to lean on ability alone. It desires a greater statement, one that is filled with the promise of creation and the threat of destruction. There is a primal element in abundance that builds and drives her interest in genres and art movements: a systematic use of energy that creates a dynamic force within each work and throughout her entire oeuvre. Kagan's system is her c

Next meetings: Sundays, July 19 & 26, from 12 to 3 PM Since the beginning of my curatorial career I have encountered artists who have struggled with, and even actively resisted, the practice of writing a statement to accompany their work. With my new seminar I hope to successfully address that concern, and work through the issues related to it, helping you to address the theoretical and operational aspects of your creative process and discovering how to address them in language that allows others, from the gallery visitor, to the curator, to the museum director, to relate to what you make in terms they can immediately comprehend and enjoy. Please join me in my home, in a casual setting, to discuss and find the answers to the quandary of having a statement.  These will be small groups of no more than 5 people, and aside from the general topic of discussion, I hope that each person will be able to discuss their own work in the context of the seminar theme. The fee f