Frieze London. Regent’s Park | Focus Section | Stand H27. October 3 – 6, 2019
Wilding Cran Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in Focus at Frieze London 2019, with a presentation of works by Los Angeles based artists Karon Davis and Gary Lang.
Davis’ figurative sculpture, He Who Floods the Nile, is part of her series telling of the love story between Isis and Osiris, from Egyptian Mythology. This piece represents Osiris who was the brother and lover of Isis. The figure is made of a rough hewn white plaster-cast body pieced together over a central armature, its fragile edges left slightly open to hint at the strength within. Davis has decorated and embellished the piece with symbols and accessories to assist in her storytelling, and to indicate Osiris’ status as King of the Afterlife.
Behind Davis’ classical composition will be two paintings by Gary Lang. The carefully composed, optically-charged concentric circles are a continuation of Lang’s ‘tondo’ series, but here he has abandoned the bright and vivid colour combinations for which he is well known, in favour of an exploration into the subtle variations and tones of white. The ghostlike, shimmery compositions invite the viewer to investigate closer, drawing you into their complex network of lines, textures, and graceful hues.
Karon Davis has a wide-ranging multimedia practice that encompasses installation, sculpture, film, photography and performance. Her work draws on elements of theatricality and mythology as it explores issues of humanity, survival, and ways of being. Davis’s work has been included in several museum exhibitions internationally including: Starless Midnight, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art (Newcastle, UK); NEW SUNS, Bonnefantenmuseum (Maastricht, NL); and Reclamation! Pan- African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection at the Taubman Museum of Art (Roanoke, VA). Recent solo and group gallery exhibitions include, MUDDY WATER and PAIN MANAGEMENT at Wilding Cran Gallery (Los Angeles); POWER at Spru?th Magers (Los Angeles); DREAMWEAVERS, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles; CONDO London, Herald St.; and PEOPLE at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, (New York & Los Angeles). Davis is a recipient, of The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2017 Biennial Grant. Her work is the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, the Hammer Museum, the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, the Rubell Family Collection and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Davis is also the co-founder of The Underground Museum, a cultural hub and urban oasis located in Arlington Heights that serves low-to-moderate income communities in Los Angeles.
Gary Lang is an internationally exhibited artist, his work has been featured in more than seventy solo exhibitions in the United States, Austria, France, Japan, The Netherlands, and Spain. He received his BFA from California Institute of Art and his MFA from Yale University. In the 1970’s he lived in Barcelona on a Fulbright/Hayes Travel Grant and lived in New York and Los Angeles before settling in Ojai, CA. Lang’s work are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Portland Museum of Art, ME; and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL; Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, MI; Gemeentemuseum den Haag, The Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; Plains Art Museum, Moorehead, MN; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; Museum of Art Contemporain, Angers, France. In 2015 he received the Arts & Letters Award, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in NYC, and in 2017 he received the Francis J. Greenburger Award. Lang currently lives and works in Ojai, CA.
Images: Left: Gary Lang, WHITECIRCLE 3, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 54 in. diameter.
Right: Karon Davis, He Who Floods the Nile, 2019, plaster cloth, wire, glass eyes, my hair weave, brass beads, gold leaf, black glitter, raw frankincense, wood base, prayers, 85 x 32.5 x 32.5 in.
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