Opening reception: Thursday, September 6, 6 – 8 PM

D’Amelio Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in New York of Los Angeles-based painter Monique van Genderen, who has exhibited in both Europe and Los Angeles. Often working in the large-scale formats of murals and installation, for this exhibition van Genderen is focused on a body of medium to large-scale paintings, offering a format that is more directly related to human scale.

The layers of Monique van Genderen’s paintings interlace a painterly elegance with a complexity and assertiveness of composition. As if shuffling transparencies, the artist builds her collage-like works from overlapping blocks of color that root her works with a flat, graphic formality. Gestural, calligraphic brushstrokes challenge this gravity, yet van Genderen renders these drips and bleeds with a deliberateness that also questions their own haphazardness. In such a way, van Genderen asserts and removes herself as technician from her compositions with pictorial riddles and contradictions. While the openness of exposed canvas and lightness of brushwork invites the viewer into some works, others appear defensive, more reflective than absorptive, demonstrating a comprehensive range. At once transparent and reflective, Monique van Genderen’s mood-shifting paintings are enigmatic and rich beneath their flat veneers.

Monique van Genderen received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, and is represented by Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Van Genderen will have a solo exhibition at Susanne Vielmetter in the fall of 2013. Recent solo exhibitions of her work have been held at the Kunstverein Heilbronn, Germany; and Galerie Michael Janssen, Berlin, Germany, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA;. Van Genderen’s work was included in the exhibition “Ambigu” at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland; the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Art Unlimited, Art Basel 37, Switzerland; and the Corcoran Biennial, Washington D.C.


For more information about the show: www.dameliogallery.com.
For press and visuals requests, please contact Trina Gordon at 212.352.0325 or at trina@dameliogallery.com.