Continuing through April 13, 2013
South American artist Arturo Mallman translates his experiences on the vast Argentine pampas. His surreal landscapes tell much about surface. Each tactile image seems to stretch endlessly, beneath a huge sky that provides a magical backdrop for his acrylic on wood panel and resin paintings. Mallman works abstractly, creating washes of color that become organic shapes that look like land masses, boulders or crevices. Into these spaces he places small, cutout figures. Because of the proportion between the sweeping expanses of land to a minuscule human being, each landscape seems even larger and more isolated.
Some paintings combine collage; others are hosed down and spray-painted. Within Mallman’s dynamic process there is a sense of contradiction, as the energy he expends results in atmospherically serene images. Mallman adds and then works back into the resin coatings, adding other features and recoating the painting again. This affects a layered look that permits us to see through each stratum.
Published courtesy of ArtSceneCal ©2013
