LOS ANGELES, CA.- Pace is pleased to present West of Nowhere, an exhibition of new works by William Monk, on view at its Los Angeles gallery. The exhibition will mark the artists first solo show in LA since 2015. Monks recently released catalogueproduced by Pace Publishing on the occasion of his 2022 exhibition The Ferryman at the gallerys New York spacewill be available to view and purchase on-site at Pace in LA.
Monk is known for his atmospheric, vibrant compositions that feature mysterious and otherworldly forms. The artists semi-abstract paintings are deeply engaged with the rich tradition and history of the medium. He frequently creates works as part of different series, drawing on various sources of inspiration connected to his own experience.
West of Nowhere, focusing holistically on notions of transience and liminality, will spotlight two new bodies of work by the artist: large-scale landscapes that relate to the paintings he presented at Paces New York gallery last year and small-scale paintings based on Rorschach inkblot tests. Both these series are underpinned by questions of subjectivity and perception, particularly as they relate to ascriptions of meaning.
Like his other bodies of work, Monks new paintings evade easy categorization and interpretation. As the artist has said, Only after the work is complete do I become aware of specific past experiences that helped to inform it perhaps in the same way that a dream picks up on certain conscious moments and twists them.
The four landscape paintings that will anchor Monks upcoming exhibition with Pace in LA suggest what French anthropologist Marc Augé termed non-place, or an anthropological space in which human relationships, histories, and identities are erased. In these works, mountainous landscapes rendered in patchworks of mottled gray, lilac, and ochre hues are partially obscured by groups of centrally situated, vertically oriented pillars that feature washes of color. The paintings in this body of work invite viewers to imagine themselves within the pictorial space while also, paradoxically, denying access to the very landscape depictedand to any fixed meaningby way of the pillars.
The six small-scale paintings in the second body of work on view in West of Nowhere directly references inkblots from Hermann Rorschachs psychological tests, but the abstract, mesmeric shapes in Monks works are painted in bright, bold colors. Presenting unusual and psychedelic referents, these paintings reflect the phenomenon of pareidolia, in which the mind seeks to create meaning from indistinct, ambiguous, or nebulous visual stimuli.
Pace
William Monk: West of Nowhere
September 9th, 2023 - October 21st, 2023