Press Release

Ruth Bachofner Gallery is pleased to present Energy, Matter, and Light, an exhibition of paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Margaret Lazzari. There will be a reception for the artist on Saturday, April 23, 5-7 PM.

In her first exhibition at the gallery, Margaret Lazzari brings together a group of abstract paintings that are guided by both internal and external spaces. Lazzari's work is rooted in her observations of the natural world and develop into spirited abstractions that inhabit a metaphoric dimension. Figuration yields to painterly movement in paintings that range from expansive to dense, but always carry a fluid, eternal motion. This series evolved from a previous body of work that focused on nature in a more scientific, literal manner than her current work. While some of the images in these works register as aqueous, geologic or tectonic forms, they diverge from the landscape genre to convey the transitory nature of the spaces within us. Observation, memory, nature, internal systems and energies drive these paintings.

Throughout the exhibition, a playful sense merges with the impression of a percolating maelstrom, forged through Lazzari's buoyant color palette and delicate line work mixed with thick charges of viscous paint. “Rich color and complex surfaces are important in these paintings,” Lazzari states, “ I like spaces that are somewhat familiar – there may be sky, horizon, and land – but they're also fabulous and strange because we have never been here before...In the history of landscape art, works like Ansel Adams’ photographs, paintings from the Hudson River school, or the American luminist paintings of the late 1800s, convey a sense of transcendence. These landscapes do more than just record surface features; they also point to large ideas, attitudes of the times, and human emotion reactions.”

Margaret Lazzari is an artist, writer and Professor of Painting and Drawing at the Roski School of Fine Arts of the University of Southern California, and until recently, served as the Associate Dean of Faculty and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Lazzari has completed many public art commissions including artwork for the city of Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica, Huntington Beach, and the Los Angeles Metro Orange Line, all of which honor the local history of the place the works were completed.