Marc Selwyn Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Leo Villareal, opening Saturday, April 30 through June 1.
Leo Villareal’s three digital light sculptures will transform the gallery into a shimmering and luminous environment. Through the pure technology of LEDs controlled by his own software -- and with sophisticated art references to Judd and Flavin – Villareal achieves an effect simultaneously hypnotic, futurist and organic.
Solaris is a five-foot diameter, ten-inch deep sculpture consisting of 80 LED fixtures arranged in four concentric circles. Complex and layered patterns are generated through Villareal’s programming which explores symmetrical relationships within the geometry. Rhythmically pulsing, the work provides a radiant center for the exhibition.
Flowers consists of eight 3-foot diameter works organically arranged across two of the gallery’s walls. Each ‘flower’ has its own rules that govern its sequencing, but at the same time is part of a larger system. The piece visually manifests a dialogue between the individual and the larger organism as sequences float across its radial clusters of light.
Devil’s Playground (White) is a 25-by-25 inch matrix of LEDs. Inspired by mathematician John Conway’s Game of Life, the artist has created his own sets of rules that produce complex behaviors. Layered patterns suggest a creation myth as firefly like points of light swirl around and multiply over abstract liquid surfaces. This world becomes increasingly dense and populated displaying abstract elemental systems that at times resemble water and fire. Particles of various sizes sweep across these landscapes, interacting with one another, as they live and die in a rapidly evolving system. The result is a dazzling world that merges the technological with the essential rules that govern ‘life’.
Villareal's Lightscape is included in Visual Music 1905-2005, an historic survey exhibition currently on display at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art that will travel to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC in June 2005.
Villareal has shown extensively throughout Europe and the United States in both public spaces as well as in galleries and museums including PS1 Contemporary Art Center/MoMA, Long Island City; Palm Beach Institute for Contemporary Art, Palm Beach; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei; and the Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse, France. Upcoming projects include a permanent light installation in a new federal courthouse in El Paso, Texas, designed by architect Antoine Predock as well as a 16 by 80 foot site-specific work for the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York in conjunction with Extreme Abstraction to be presented in July 2005. Villareal studied installation sculpture and video at Yale University and went on to the Interactive Telecommunicatons Program (ITP) at New York University where he specialized in virtual reality, simulation and interactive television. He spent two years as a member of the research staff at Interval Research, a private think tank in Palo Alto founded by Paul Allen. Leo Villareal’s exhibition for Marc Selwyn Fine Art is his first solo exhibition on the West Coast; this show is presented in cooperation with Scenic and Simon Watson