The Frank Lloyd Gallery will present an exhibition of recent wall relief sculpture by Craig Kauffman, beginning September 13 and continuing through October 18. The recent work, made from acrylic plastic and spray-painted in subtle, luscious colors, continues the artist's investigation of the medium. Kauffman began his work with vacuum-formed acrylic plastic in the mid-1960s, and has periodically returned to the medium as he invents new forms. The exhibit will be accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp.
Playfully known as Bubbles, Donuts, and Dishes, all works are convex or concave ovals and protrude from the wall. The Bubbles have eight sides and form a hemisphere. The exhibit will also include wall reliefs in the shape of a doughnut, and others from a series containing flat oval centers and raised walls—the Dishes. The deftly painted works are infused with rich color relationships, and saturated with metallic iridescence.
Craig Kauffman's wall relief sculptures are his most well known work. Throughout his career, Kauffman has explored the use of unorthodox materials. Art historian Susan C. Larsen notes, "Kauffman's work has maintained its radiant color and its emphasis on certain sensuous physical properties of his materials."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. Wall reliefs that have been described by curator Richard Armstrong as, "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 highly 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.
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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.