KRISTI ENGLE GALLERY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kristi Engle Gallery
5002 York Ave.
Highland Park, CA 90042
323.472.6237
kristi@kristienglegallery.com

ART EXHIBITION: ED JOHNSON: “SELECTIONS FROM OPTIMIST'S PARK”

September 16 through October 28, 2006
Opening Reception: September 16, 2006: 6-9pm
Gallery hours: Thurs - Sat, 12 - 6pm & by appointment
For images, please contact: Kristi Engle, 323/472-6237

Several years ago, painter Ed Johnson videotaped a rebroadcast of a made-for-television movie- a modern western from the late 1970s. Johnson then took photographs of the television screen with the video paused at choice moments and has since been using these photographs to create 1:1 copies in oil on plexiglass, centering the image in a wide field of white gesso. The Kristi Engle Gallery will present five of these works in the exhibition, "Selections from Optimist's Park".

In this series, Johnson captures transitive moments and by capturing them, holds them still, changing the context of the image itself. The figures in these images are trapped between one movement and another, essentially revealing a moment that was not meant to be seen. We no longer see any movement or action, but merely one frame for which we must create our own narrative. The plot, title and motivations of the film's characters no longer matter. It becomes the "every movie" for the "everyman" and the "everyman" is no man in particular, as the "every movie" is no movie in particular.

A visual glitch caused by trying to catch a single frame on videotape gives the paintings an ephemeral effect, as figures and objects remain unclear and out of focus. These are highly mediated images (a painting of a photograph of a video of a film), and this property of Johnson's process accentuates the gap created between image and subject. To paraphrase David Foster Wallace in an essay about television and contemporary fiction: realism may call it as it sees it but work such as Johnson's calls it as it sees itself seeing itself see it. Through this contrived and limited portrayal of a forgotten film, Johnson brings to light issues of image, subject and representation and all of their complexities and contradictions.

Kristi Engle Gallery devotes itself primarily to solo exhibitions of new works by contemporary artists. It is located in Highland Park, near the corner of Ave. 50 and York Blvd.

* The essay cited is "E Unibus Pluram: Television & U.S. Fiction" by David Foster Wallace. It is included in the collection, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.

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