SANTA FE, NM.- Charlotte Jackson Fine Art announces an exhibition of the work of the renowned California artist, Tony DeLap.
The work of Tony DeLap always leads the eye in unexpected directions. Blocks of intense color on canvas inter- sect and pull the eye deep into what seems to be a maze of three dimensional forms. The edge of a sculptural painting on the wall bends, twists back on itself, confusing the eye and defying the notion of what is painting, what is sculpture, what is edge, and what is content. With their deceptive geometries, elegant lines, and finish fetish colors, DeLap’s work, whether it is a painting, drawing, sculpture, or sculptural painting, always display a mastery of expectation and perception.
DeLap, a veteran of the West Coast’s art scene, was an early follower of Modernism and the Russian Constructivists, pursuing geometrical abstraction as it moved toward minimalism. He studied at the San Francisco Academy of Art and later at the Claremont Graduate School. In the early years in his Oakland studio, DeLap had wide interests and influences, including architecture and graphic design. It is clear to see their influence on his work, not only in their clean lines and complex geometries, but in their distinctive and cunning construction. While many of his contemporaries were moving toward fabrication, one of the unique aspects of DeLap’s work is its insistence on the essentialness of the maker’s hand. DeLap’s first work was mostly sculptural, earning him early recognition, and the honor of being featured on the cover of Artforum magazine.
Over the years, DeLap’s work has been aligned by critics with several of the artistic movements of the 20th Century: Hard Edge, Finish Fetish, Op Art, Minimalism, Constructivism, and Art & Space to name a few, yet DeLap has managed to remain unfettered by these labels, utilizing techniques and ideas from the movements and in turn contributing to their development while maintaining a mix of a playful curiosity and serious artistic exploration that is distinctively his own. His influence extended beyond the gallery, as well. DeLap first taught at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and then received an offer to become one of the founding members of the art department at the newly founded University of California at Irvine. DeLap’s influence on future artists included mentoring notables like Bruce Nauman, James Turrell, and John McCracken. DeLap was among those included in seminal exhibitions in the 1960’s like the “American Sculpture in the Sixties,” exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His pieces have been included in prestigious collections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Hirshhorn, the Whitney, and the Tate in London.
It is not surprising that DeLap, with such a rich history of art-making and such a far-reaching effect on the world of art, has become the subject of both a new book and a new film. The book, Tony DeLap , is a joint production of Art Santa Fe Presents and Radius Books. At 192 pages, with 128 gorgeous full color images, the volume presents a thorough survey of DeLap’s career to date, including an essay by noted art critic Barbara Rose.
With Selected Works from Fifty Years of Making Art , viewers have the rare opportunity to see a whole range of this perception-challenging work spanning DeLap’s career, and to experience firsthand the illusive qualities of his art.
