Rob Wynne
Gavlak is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Rob Wynne in Los Angeles. It will be the New York-based artist's third solo exhibit of his innovative and alluring glass works, hand beaded drawings, paintings, and sculptures with Gavlak. The previous two exhibitions were in the Palm Beach location February 2013 and November 2009. Entering the "artificial paradise" of glass beaded butterflies, spiders and their webs, mirrored glass declarations such as "I Walk Everyday In Search of You" and "The Vanished World," Wynne's work embodies Rococo complexity and allure in a wide variety of forms and materials. This exhibition marks Wynne's most ambitious gallery show featuring his now iconic glass wall sculptures in the shape of waves, vortexes, and underwater exhale bubbles and text works including a new series using black glass.
In Wynne's first use of black glass ever, the artist has shifted his iconic text wall sculptures from silver and mirrored into opaque black. Wynne specifically crafted these new light-absorbing works for this exhibition. In all of his word and phrase work, the pieces have a somewhat hidden meaning that are given new context and life when placed on the wall. The sources of the text are transformed by what they become. In line with the Dada poets, Wynne embraces the visual component of words to bring out the pictorial quality of each letter. In making the works at a glass foundry, Wynne literally "draws" the letters with molten liquid on a flat surface. Process and material determine the shapes, guided by the artist's hand. The visual impact is just as powerful as the words themselves. Wynne has been interested in the use of language as an extension of seeing, in order to find the emotive strength in looking.
In his bead and thread drawings, he continues his exploration of language with whimsical and provocative words and statements such as "Galore" and "Love Sick" as well as depicting jeweled creatures-the front and back of the drawing are simultaneously visible, since they are made on transparent paper. Much like des Esseinte's decadent jeweled turtle in "A Rebour," in Wynne's world, Jellyfish glisten and bumblebees sparkle unlike their more natural kin. These layered works show the artist's ability to delicately draw with different materials while both process and message are on display.
In addition to his recent work, Gavlak is pleased to present a selection of earlier works from the late 70s, collages with text and appropriated imagery, works from the 80s when he was a part of the historic Holly Solomon Gallery, blown glass mushrooms, Unicorn horns, and a photo and embroidered text piece not shown since the mid 90s. These early pieces provide context to Wynne, weaving together the continuous threads of the artist's work.
Rob Wynne lives and works in New York City and has had numerous solo gallery exhibitions, including JGM Galerie, Paris; Galerie Edward Mitterrand, Geneva; and Holly Solomon Gallery, New York and The Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Breach, Florida. His work has been featured in-group exhibitions at the McNay Art Museum, TX; P.S.1 Institute for Contemporary Art, NY; Long Beach Museum of Art, CA; The Drawing Center, NY; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. Wynne's work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; Centre Pompidou, France; The Norton Museum of Art, FL; the Columbus Museum of Art, OH; and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris.