Lisa Beck

"I like the idea of painting as imaginative fiction - you know it’s not real, but you want to believe it anyway, like a magic trick. Even if you know how it's done, you're still amazed."

-Lisa Beck, interview with Bob Nickas, 2006

Jane Kim is pleased to present "You Are Here"- a solo exhibition by Lisa Beck at 33 Orchard, opening Saturday, September 27 from 6-8 pm. The show will run through November 2, 2014.

Lisa Beck has long been preoccupied with ways to see our place in the wider universe. As scientists search for understanding of the fundamental physics of the universe they study observable phenomena and available data. Based on this data, many different theories have arisen, and each of those theories presents a different understanding of the way the universe works. In the same way, gathering information, observing situations from different points of view, and the constant shift in our perception of reality are the foundations of Beck's approach to her work. Visual awareness and perception are a bridge between us and the world we live in, and acts of observation become acts of creation as we use what we see to create the world as we understand it. With this in mind, Beck employs diverse materials, including mylar, enamel, oil paint, mirrors, acrylic spheres, stainless steel and wood in her works which take the forms of paintings, sculptures, installations, and wall paintings. She creates works whose appearance shifts as the viewer moves, or as the light changes. The reflective aspects of the works integrate them with the surrounding environment. While formally abstract, the work has many references: changing skies, star fields, orphan planets, light rays, the relative smallness and fragility of our earthbound existence.

Heightened visual and spatial consciousness - the cosmic and the earthly - along with the silence and expansiveness of the space and time continuum, are the first impressions of "You Are Here". While Beck's works take diverse forms, transparency and reflection are the visual qualities that link the works in the exhibition. 33 Orchard's space itself is altered by a large panel that divides the long gallery space into discrete areas containing recent works that present different aspects of Beck’s universe.

Recent works include paintings on mylar in which bands of color rhythmically alternate with the shiny surface to create expansive cosmic imagery, and sculptures of translucent acrylic balls suspended in the gallery that encapsulate dozens of images of the space and the works within it.

The artist’s recombinant constructions are ensembles of panels that hang close together in varied compositions. Each of these works brings together combinations of painted and reflective surfaces, such as mylar, oil paint, attached mirrors, etc, which ultimately form cohesive compositions. The disparate elements that make up each of these pieces correspond to the mental constructions formed from divergent observations one reflects upon to arrive at a coherent understanding.

Her paintings on mirrors are made using enamel paint over mirror with linear elements left unpainted to reveal flickering slivers of bare mirror within the lush paint. Beck creates a visually vibrant surface, allowing the paint to float and pool on the surface that contrasts with the linear structure. This serves her concurrent interests in the materiality of the art object and its metaphorical references to space, landscape and mood.

Lisa Beck was born in 1958, and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. This is her tenth solo exhibition in New York City, seven of which were presented at Feature Inc. Her latest projects include group shows at "Another, Once Again, Many Times More," Martos Gallery, East Marion, NY; "The Egg," LABspace, Great Barrington, MA ; "The Optical Unconscious", Kunst(zeug)haus, Rapperswil, Switzerland; “Inhabiting TenEyck,” Storefront TenEyck, Bushwick; one person shows: "Lisa Beck: Observatory," Galerie Samy Abraham, Paris, 2014 and “Lisa Beck: Endless,” Fort du Bruissin - Centre d’Art Contemporain, Lyon, 2012.