David Richard Gallery opens an exhibition of paintings 1963-1965 by Ronald Davis
ArtDaily
December 1, 2022
NEW YORK, NY.- David Richard Gallery is presenting Optical, Shaped and Color Abstractions, Paintings: 1963 – 1965 by Ronald Davis in his first solo exhibition with the Galley and first solo exhibition in New York since the presentation of his 1960s Monochrome Paintings at Franklin Parrasch Gallery in 2010.
This presentation includes 8 geometric, hard-edge, and color-based abstract paintings from 1963 to 1965, all acrylic on canvas and created in California, and 4 drawings from 1966, 1975 and 1977. Together, these paintings and drawings map Davis’s early explorations of illusory space and optical effects in the two-dimensional picture plane: starting from the early 1960s paintings in this exhibition and minimalist monochrome paintings from 1965; to his very well-known large scale shaped dodecagons, cubes and slab cast resin paintings (1966-1972); then to the perspectival Snapline (1975 – 1978) and geometric Floater(1978 – 1979) series, both acrylic paint on canvas.
In the early 1960s, Davis was fresh out of his studies at the San Francisco Art Institute, heavily influenced by Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still and expressionism, he wanted to find his own voice and visual language. Stating that he “strove to expand the boundaries of painting, not the boundaries of what was then becoming art”1, he did so by focusing on extreme vector geometry, potent color interactions, and optical effects. More specifically, Davis stated, “I set up tensions in my paintings; between the flatness of the canvas and the illusion of the depicted abstract objects; between the painterly and the hard edge; between color and color; between light and shadow. These paintings attempt to probe the dimensions of time and space, while not existing in time at all, the whole artwork being viewable in an instant.”2 The combination of dualities and internal tensions within each painting resulted in imagery expanding (literally) and popping (figuratively) out of a traditional square or rectangular picture plane and into shaped perimeters that gave the illusion of rectangular boxes, pentagons, parallelograms, diamonds, and bent planks, each protruding off the wall. Such illusions became an easy leap to painting much larger, intensely optical imagery leveraging three-point perspective in cast polyester resin, protruding canvases, encaustic on shaped wood supports, expanded PVC, and canvases in various shapes and sizes.
Other than Dr. Zig Wig, 1964, which was exhibited at Stanford University in 1964, none of the other paintings have ever been presented publicly until now. The painting Hexagon Block, 1965, has a back label from the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in Los Angeles, where Davis was first represented and the year of his first solo show with Wilder. Hexagon Block, 1965 was discussed and image included in an essay written by Barbara Rose for the exhibition "A New Aesthetic" that she organized for the Washington Gallery of Modern Art in Washington D.C. in 1967.
Associated Artist
Associated Exhibitions
- Ronald Davis Optical, Shaped and Color Abstractions, Paintings: 1963 - 1965
526 West 26th Street, Suite 311
November 6, 2022 - December 23, 2022
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