JK Gallery is pleased to present its upcoming exhibition, Plunge Into Liquid, paintings by Farnaz Nylander, April 4 - May 9, 2009. There will be an opening reception with the artist Saturday, April 4th, 2009 from 6 to 8pm.

Plunge into Liquid is a physical discourse with the materiality, plasticity, and tactility of oil paint. Nylander addresses the boundaries and limitations of the medium. Paint is exploited: poured, scraped, smeared, squeezed, or dissolved into its molecular particles, manipulating the germinality and versatility of the medium. Responding to the legacy of Abstract Expressionism with a playful originality, Nylander constructs sections of her paintings with multiple layers of poured paint where the outcomes are controlled-random results: a sense of rhythm and order that emerges out of disorder and chaos. Nylander explores the richness of color and the inherent possibilities of the physicality of paint using a plethoric impasto technique, reviving the way paint is traditionally applied. By accentuating the physical act of painting and eliminating the surface-to-depth oscillation, she invites the viewer to step closer and venture up to her work at a micro level, emphasizing the desire for immediacy and intimate dialogue.

The enthralling colors of Nylander’s work evoke the palette of candy counters and ice cream parlors, while simultaneously addressing the myth of perfection and the allure of beauty through the materials’ unnatural and noxious makeup. Recently, Nylander’s work has turned towards this dichotomy of attraction and repulsion. Playful and provocative titles, such as Mummyberry and Blossom Blast, refer to deadly plant diseases that speak to this idea of beauty and decay in the natural world. These beautifully seductive, large-scale paintings take a seemingly banal reality at a microcosmic level and dissect it, re-erecting a new order in which the viewer gets lost in this wonder of our nature.

Farnaz Nylander is an emerging artist. She received her BA, Cum Laude, from the University of California at Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts. She is the recipient of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts Honors Award. She lives and works in Orange County, California. This is her first solo exhibition in Los Angeles.