Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann & Beth James: Reverie

Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann, Mountainal 2, 2019
acrylic, sumi ink, and collage on paper, 45 x 55 inches (photo credit: Stephen Cherry)

Lonsdale Gallery

Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann & Beth James
REVERIE

August 30 – September 27, 2019
Join us for the Opening Reception, Saturday, September 7, 2 – 5pm

Lonsdale Gallery presents Reverie, an exhibition of new paintings by Washington artist Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann and Toronto artist Beth James.

Reverie describes a state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts – like a daydream that infiltrates the subconscious and teases the recesses of one’s mind. A similar experience emerges when regarding the paintings of Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann and Beth James. Their material and process-based explorations play with perception; oscillating between void and abundance, chaos and order, chance and control.

Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann’s opulent and densely arranged large-scale paintings on paper explores ecological and geological cycles. An American artist of Taiwanese decent, Mann draws inspiration from her early childhood training in traditional Chinese landscape painting to create a fantastic abstract vision of the natural world. Her recent series questions how painting can capture flux, abundance, waste, fertility, and the collision and collusion of diverse forms.

The immersive nature of Mann’s paintings engulfs viewers in a delicious overabundance of detail; combining hard-edged colour fields, fine line drawing, and loose dramatic swathes of colour. Mann deftly achieves great depth in her compositions through incongruity rather than perspective, intuitively arranging seemingly diametric elements together until they achieve visual harmony.

Beth James, Untitled (drips: ten thousand lines) CMYK, 2019
watercolor on paper, mounted on board, 48 x 72 inches

Beth James’ formal exploration of surface, movement and pattern reveal the expressive power of lines. James builds energetic large-scale linear abstract paintings from hundreds of drips of watercolour that radiate outward from a central axis. The series began through observing paint rivulets splattered along the wall in the artist’s studio. Inspired by the colour field paintings of Morris Lewis, and Jackson Pollock’s gestural style of abstract expressionism; James considers how paint moves.

James’ formal process-based approach to watercolour explores the tension between control and chance, positive and negative space. She produces mesmerizing optical effects by carefully dripping hundreds of individual lines watercolour across the surface of the paper. As gravity pulls the beads of paint down, lines of transparent colour intersect and overlay, producing diaphanous colouristic effects.

410 Spadina Road, Toronto, ON, M5P 2W2
416.487.8733 | info@lonsdalegallery.com
lonsdalegallery.com

Wednesday to Sunday, 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, or by appointment

Accessibility:
Lonsdale Gallery is a partially accessible venue with an entrance at street level to enter the main level of the gallery. Please note, we do not have an elevator to access second level of the gallery and the restroom. For any special assistance or queries about the venue please call or email the gallery.