| Exhibition: | Ruth Trotter, Frames of Reference |
| Dates: | 11 June, 2016 through 23 July, 2016 |
| Reception: | Saturday, 11 June, 2016 — 6-8 |
| Location: | Ruth Bachofner Gallery 2525 Michigan Avenue, Suite G2 Santa Monica, CA 90404 |
Ruth Bachofner Gallery is pleased to present Frames of Reference, an exhibition of paintings by Ruth Trotter. There will be a reception for the artist on Saturday, June 11, 6-8 PM.
In her first exhibition at the gallery, Ruth Trotter brings together a series of paintings that embody a narrative between material and inner spaces that the artist explores through abstraction. The physical progression of her paintings and the psychological spaces she accesses through her process generate a series of intimately scaled paintings, dense with opposing forces and harmonies. Each of her paintings, which initially come off as flights of painterly fancy, are studies on the focus of intention. Seemingly intuitive smears and sketches that sit next to geometric shapes and sharp lines, converge as systematically as paragraphs in a sentence. The forms build and jostle in painterly stories shaped from numerous reference points. While the artist does tap her intuition as a means to an end, the final works are grounded with a crisp grittiness - her blithe palette gives a feminine edge to paintings that seem at once to carry the levity of a bright Mediterranean landscape, and the rough patina of a graffitied, painted, worked urban wall.
“I consider the paintings narrative abstractions that represent versions of things that may be known or unknown, visible or invisible,” Trotter states. “The paintings are constructed with an emphasis on physicality, color, and space. Through the physical process of building and re-building the surface, adding and removing marks, strokes, and layers, the paintings embody the idea that true perception requires both cognition and intuition in flux-- as does the creative process. For me, this presents a complex and subjective dynamic that is continually played out between the art and the viewer.”
Ruth Trotter is a painter and Professor of Art at the University of La Verne in Southern California. She received her B.A. from Scripps College and her M.F.A. from Claremont Graduate University. Her paintings, prints, and drawings have been exhibited nationally and internationally. As well as maintaining a studio practice and teaching, Trotter has extensive curatorial experience and has served as a panelist and advisor to several arts organizations in the Los Angeles area.