Morgan Lehman is pleased to present Edgelands, Judith Belzer's second solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition opens on March 28th, with a reception for the artist from 6-8pm, and will be on view through April 27th.
In a statement about the work, Belzer writes:
My new paintings explore the complex relationships between nature and culture through the lens of the landscapes we have created. The current series investigates the edge lands where the built environment and the natural landscape converge, clash and interlace. The engagements that occur along these boundaries are dynamic, unpredictable and sometimes chaotic. Using a broad painting language of mark-making and a kind of bent, vertiginous perspective (often from an overhead angle), the paintings evoke a visceral sense of what it feels like to live in a landscape in the process of being transformed by our own industriousness.
Working in the San Francisco Bay Area, Belzer makes good use of what she sees everyday: a fabricated landscape built into, upon and around a natural one. The paintings reflect the tension of this relationship and the uncertainty we feel about the industrial conquest of the natural landscape. As in Belzer's last series, where she examined the patterning of wood and its grain up close, Edgelands explores our relationship with nature through a calculated abstraction. Pulling in and out of focus, Belzer simultaneously offers a flattened study of cellular patterns and a volumetric aerial view of developed and activated terrain. The resulting landscapes are at once dystopic and thrilling in their energy and movement.
Judith Belzer studied painting at the New York Studio School. Her work has been exhibited widely across the country including solo exhibitions at George Lawson Gallery (San Francisco and Culver City), Valerie Carberry Gallery (Chicago), dosa 818 (Los Angeles) and the Sonoma County Museum. Originally from Chicago, Belzer currently lives in Berkeley, California.
This spring, concurrent with the gallery exhibition, Belzer's work will be included in two museum group shows in New York: Against the Grain at the Museum of Arts and Design and Drawn to Nature at Wave Hill.
