The Frank Lloyd Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition of rare works by Roseline Delisle (1952-2003). Born in Rimouski, Québec, Canada, Delisle attended the Institute of the Applied Arts in Montreal before moving to Los Angeles in 1978. Meticulous in their fabrication and decoration, Delisle's nonfunctional vessels are elegant and precise. The geometric rigor of her pieces is offset by their often anthropomorphic proportions, and richly satisfying surface qualities. Kristine McKenna of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Delisle's work has the delicacy, intricate detail, and impeccable craftsmanship of a Faberge egg. Evocative of stylized harlequin figures that threaten to morph into spinning tops, the work is at once whimsical and austere, and it feels futuristic in an old-fashioned sense."
Delisle cited as seminal influences the Suprematist drawings of Malevich, the Constructivist theatre and ballet designs of Oskar Schlemmer, and the line drawings of Picasso. Her primary influences in the world of ceramics have been Lucie Rie for her delicacy of form and use of line, and John Mason's monumental scale and Minimalist aesthetic. Despite her awareness of these historical sources and her relentless reductivist sensibility, Delisle allowed some interplay between intellect and intuition.
This exhibition will include a selection of work produced in the 1980s and 90s, illustrating the artist's move towards progressively larger forms. Although most of her early work was made in the demanding medium of fired porcelain, Delisle turned to an earthenware clay body to accommodate her desire to build larger-scale figurative pieces. Her largest works are composed of several pieces, which stack together seamlessly. The work was formed and decorated on the wheel, the fundamental basis of Delisle's practice. Horizontal striping in black, white, and blue both accentuates and disrupts the smooth proportions of her wheel-thrown forms. Referring to Delisle's work, McKenna also wrote that "As aesthetic forms, they're structured around a number of oppositions: profile versus surface; vertical thrust versus horizontal stripe; order versus whimsy; color versus form. Perhaps most important, what they do is take another opposition – art versus craft – and skewer it with wit and shocking grace."
Roseline Delisle's work is internationally represented in major museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Musée des Beaux Arts in Montreal, and the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art.
Please click here to view the digital catalogue for the exhibition on an iPad: