Installation view, West gallery
David Lloyd
Two Electric Desires
May 4 - June 7, 2013
Opening Reception:
Saturday, May 4th, 6-8 pm
gallery km is very pleased to present Two Electric Desires, our second solo show of work by Los Angeles-based artist David Lloyd, exploring manifestations of the quantifiable and unquantifiable through a combination of paint, digital image and text on non-rectangular wood panel and paper. The exhibition will run from May 4th through June 8th, with an opening reception on Saturday, May 4th, from 6-8pm.
Lloyd’s previous series of work focused on the intersection between science and mysticism, exploring symbol systems of mainstream and marginalized ideologies of faith, science, politics, and the associated machinery of language and imagery they produce. His current body of work extends his focus on the intersection between documentable and undocumentable reality, with a shift away from narrative and towards a solitary blast of visual and linguistic information intended to hit the viewer “from the neck down”, using unidentifiable but seemingly recognizable cultural imagery in combination with an intensely-colored geometric language of abstraction, as well as geometrically-contained areas of text.
The pieces on wood are visually defined first by the shapes of the surfaces, which vary considerably in form, size and directionality, but are consistent in their use of symmetry. The shapes refer to the ubiquitous symmetry found in the natural world—fractals, cosmic geometry and the ability of a cell to divide and replicate endlessly—and Lloyd describes them as presenting on the wall as if caught in the moment preceding replication. Within these forms, printed images taken from esoteric sources (the corner of a frame of a little-known1960’s film, early 20th century books, staged photographs) integrate with an abstract language of color and shape that comes close to implying the mid-century Hard Edge movement, and text that reads like straight quotation but is not. In the works on paper, we find the same symmetry focused inwards within the confines of square, a repetition that reads as if it might go through the wall rather than expanding upon it. In both works on paper and wood, Lloyd moves towards the impossibility of free-floating language, approaching the cultural zeitgeist without allowing concrete recognition, intending less discussion than transportation.
David Lloyd graduated with a BFA from CalArts in 1985. He has exhibited throughout the United States, at venues including Margo Leavin Gallery in Los Angeles, Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco, Metro Pictures and Milk Gallery in New York, and the Orange County Museum of Art. His work has been written about in publications such as the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and he is included in the collections of the Orange County Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.