Lester Monzon
Flirt
June 9 - July 14, 2007
Break. 2007.
Acrylic on linen. 9" X 12".
Lester Monzon's work is a painter's version of shuttle diplomacy, employing processes aimed at reconciling opposing formal camps in an attempt to find common ground, achieve resolution, and reach a mutually beneficial coexistence in a fictive pictorial space.
Monzon's paintings reference several classic painting genres that historically have been, if not actually at odds with one another, then at least marginally hostile to one another's projects. Several of the works combine gestural abstraction with pattern. However, in these paintings the gesture is not authentic. Monzon's "gestures" are actually highly rendered and stylized versions of brushstrokes, executed with a tight precision that runs counter to the intuitive intention of the gesture. Meanwhile, authentic gesture begins to seize control within the paintings which seem purely pattern.
Monzon also works with the representational genre in his flower and bird paintings. Unlike the gesture/pattern paintings, which attempt a reconciliation within a single given picture plane, the flowers and birds create their relationship between multiple paintings. The flowers, a decorative and feminine subject (not unlike pattern painting), dialogue with the birds, which Monzon has carefully chosen for their masculine characteristics: a vulture and a preening peacock.
Monzon is negotiating a field between apparent opposites: gesture and pattern, intuition and intellect, heroic and intimate, masculine and feminine. It is his desire to give these oppositions a safe zone to coexist, rather than pick sides. This is what makes Monzon's paintings so compelling.
About the Artist
Lester Monzon received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He participated in this year's Incognito exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Monzon has exhibited at Roberts & Tilton, LA, The Brewery Project, LA and Hatch Gallery in Venice, CA. Monzon lives and works in Los Angeles.
