Richard Anuszkiewicz @ David Richard Gallery, Santa Fe, USA

The David Richard Gallery is currently running another new exhibition (see here for other current exhibition by Beverly Fishman at David Richard Gallery) by celebrated Op Artist Richard Anuszkiewicz. The gallery is located at 544 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico, NM 87501, USA. The exhibition is called ‘VARIATIONS: EVOLUTION OF THE ARTIST’S MEDIA 1986 – 2012‘ and runs May 10 2013 to June 15 2013. Given that there are 2 superb Op Art related exhibitions at the David Richard Gallery, we strongly recommend that if you live anywhere near there or are going to be in the area you drop in and take a look.

Anuszkiewicz – Translumina Blue Tinted Red

“Featuring sculptural works accompanied by drawings and paintings, the exhibition maps the evolution of Richard Anuszkiewicz’s art from 1986 through 2012 as he moves out of the purely two-dimensional plane and explores visual perception and three-dimensional space with the greatest economy of means, using only thin strips of wood or metal that are painted with just two or three carefully selected hues. Creating reductive structures, he takes advantage of a well known phenomenon in which the viewer’s mind completes the minimal constructs, envisioning a whole from the fragments by filling in the suggested flat surfaces or layers of overlapping planes. These structures are not only more architectural, but much simpler than his paintings, relying less on painting methods to create optical illusions and more on a literal approach aided by pure color.

In the Translumina series, the painted wooden strips on wall reliefs or pedestal sculptures create open structures that read as solid three-dimensional shapes. In the wall reliefs, the distances between the wood strips are graduated, which in combination with alternating hues model the rectangular shapes and create the illusion of rounded columns. Thus, he creates and maintains a tension between painting and sculpture to create the illusion of solid three-dimensional overlapping shapes. Another series of sculptures is still more reductive, whereby Anuszkiewicz uses only thin strips of metal constructed in a two-dimensional plane painted with one to four colors—mostly primary—such that they appear as line drawings. These sculptures are so open and transparent, they seem to float like boxes and cruciform structures in space.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by John Yau of New York.”