The Frank Lloyd Gallery will present an exhibition of recent wall relief sculpture and paintings by Craig Kauffman from April 3-May 1, 2010. The recent work, made by the artist in his studio in the Philippines, includes stainless steel wall relief sculpture. In addition, Kauffman has continued to work with translucent and transparent materials, painting on clear vinyl and clear acrylic plastic. Throughout, the works reflect Kauffman's life-long interest in unorthodox supports for painting, as well as a sensuous and luminous color sensibility.
Kauffman has maintained a home and studio in the Philippines since the late 1980s. He has continued to exhibit in the United States during the past two decades. Recently, his early work has received considerable exposure in survey exhibitions about the art of the 1960s that have been presented at major institutions. Currently, the curators of the Museum of Modern Art organized the show 1969 at PS1 in New York. Also, Kauffman's work has a presence in the Los Angeles MOCA show, MOCA's First Thirty Years, currently on view.
Craig Kauffman's wall relief sculptures are his most well known work. Throughout his career, Kauffman has explored the use of unorthodox materials, as most writers have noted. "Kauffman's work has maintained its radiant color and its emphasis on certain sensuous physical properties of his materials," according to Susan C. Larsen.1 However, it is through his integration of sprayed color and shape that he achieves the lush presence of his vacuum formed acrylic wall reliefs. "Glossy and symmetrical, the work's visually wet surface engenders anatomical, sometimes overtly sexual, comparisons."2
Craig Kauffman (born 1932 in Los Angeles) is a major Los Angeles artist whose work has been exhibited in the US and abroad since 1951. Kauffman remains an active and enthusiastically received painter who is equally well recognized for his history of adventurous engagement with new materials. Kauffman is one of the most prominent and influential artists to have come out of the Los Angeles art scene of the 1960s, having shown with Felix Landau Gallery and later at Ferus Gallery.
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1 Larsen, Susan C., Sunshine and Shadow: Recent Painting in Southern California, Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1986.
2 Armstrong, Richard, Craig Kauffman: Wall Reliefs from the Late 1960s, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1987.