Ed Valentine, gatherEd
Press Release
Ed Valentine
Gathered
April 16 – May 21, 2016
Opening reception: Saturday, April 16, 6 to 8pm
Angela Meleca Gallery is pleased to announce the gallery’s second solo exhibition with Ed Valentine, Gathered, opening on Saturday, April 16 from 6 to 8pm. The exhibition features more than 20 works highlighting Valentine’s long career as a painter.
Often referred to as a 'painter's painter', Valentine views the act of painting as a type of investigation and experimentation. This experimentation throughout his career has led him to become increasingly aware of perceptions of elements that make up elementary principles of painting: color, line, marks, pattern, composition, texture and form. Valentine uses those perceptions to imply a language that identifies and quantifies the specifics of the elements.
Above his studio door, the phrase "Four to Six Elements in Visual and Conceptual Harmony” is posted. This is a mantra Valentine uses as a reminder of the number of different aesthetical choices within each painting. He isolates and orchestrates these
elements and their endless variations and combinations onto the two-dimensional surface. Valentine doesn't paint a point-of-view and he is not interested in taking art beyond aesthetics. In the work, there is a focus not to overload, confound or convolute. They are rather, about composition and orchestration.
Valentine uses the portrait, figure, landscape and still life to provide an entrance into the work. He is encouraging the viewer to put some effort into looking at the paintings. His decision-making process is based upon the concerns of art history, rendering illusionary space, and creating harmony within the rectangle of the canvas. That’s not to say that Valentine obeys convention. Rather he draws from painting’s different tropes at will.
Ed Valentine (b.1951) based in Delaware, Ohio and Jersey City, New Jersey, received his BFA from The Columbus College of Art and Design and his MFA from The Ohio State University.
His work has been exhibited at Avenue B Gallery, New York; Envoy Enterprises, New York; Columbus Museum, Columbus, Ohio; Phillis Kind Gallery, New York; Union de Banques Paris; The Burton Gallery, Los Angeles; Ovsey Gallery, Los Angeles; Linda Warren Projects, Chicago: The National Moravian-Silesian Theater, Ostrava, The Czech Republic; and Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, among many others. His work has been reviewed in such publications as the L.A. Times, Art Ltd., and the San Francisco Chronicle. Valentine is the Foundations Instructor and Art Department Head at The Ohio State University (Lima). And the curator of the Farmer Family Gallery.
Please contact:
Angela Meleca Gallery
144 E. State Street
Columbus, Ohio 43215
ameleca@meleca.com