Art review: Tim Ebner at Rosamund Felsen Gallery

Abstract paintings come in all sizes but not many shapes. That's because if a painter wants to be taken seriously, he's expected to stick to the regular format, squares and rectangles, throwing in an occasional circle or oval when he wants to get wild.

Tim Ebner's new works take the notion of shaped paintings far beyond these parameters, making them seem silly and not nearly as ambitious as his terrifically eccentric paintings, which are shaped like exotic fish.

 To step into Rosamund Felsen Gallery is to immerse yourself in a world of luscious color, exuberant brush strokes and fish of all shapes and stripes.

It's great fun and, like lots of the 56-year-old artist's 21 solo shows in Los Angeles over the last 28 years, an unexpected departure that attests to Ebner's inventiveness and his unwillingness to stick to a tried and true style.

Each of Ebner's two dozen fish is unlike any other. All are canvas on panel. The shapes of some are realistic. Others are imaginary. Many are adorned with feathers, beads and baubles, as well as antennae-style wires and fake eyelashes. One is made of bread. Another wears glasses.

All are mounted on rusty metal bars that extend from a few inches to more than four feet from the walls. This makes the festive fish seem to be swimming in midair. All are dolled up with carefully placed lumps of Sculpy, an easy-to-use modeling compound that causes many of Ebner's rainbow-colored fish to appear to have collagen-enhanced lips, surgically improved cheekbones and Botox-smoothed brows. Think Palm Springs meets Pixar, by way of a precocious kid's coloring book.

 And that's just the beginning. Ebner's freewheeling brushwork steals the show. It's messy without being muddled; energized without being expressive; forceful yet free of the pompous bombast so common to much improvised abstraction.

Part of Ebner's originality has to do with his palette, a delicious mixture of organic and unnatural tints. But most of it has to do with the stark contrast between the juicy fluidity of his promiscuously mixed pigments and the crisp contours of his fishes' silhouettes, each neatly cut with a jigsaw. Some outlines are graceful and sinuous, just like real fish.

Others are goofy and cartoon, just like real fish. Still others are zany and make-believe, unlike anything in the real world.

This body of work began when Ebner got bored painting on flat surfaces.

To throw himself a curve, he dug a hole in his backyard and filled it with cement. When the cement dried, he dug up the rough, spherical lump, set it on a table in his studio and stretched canvases over it.

 Painting over a 3-D form was sufficiently disorienting to free Ebner from lazy habits. It allowed him to see things with fresh eyes. The next step, of cutting his canvases into fish shapes, has no logical explanation. It's just Ebner's hyperactive imagination making a leap, a leap of faith that does not worry about going off the deep end but delights in the discoveries to be found there.

– David Pagel

Rosamund Felsen Gallery, 2525 Michigan Ave., Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, (310) 828-8488, through Feb. 6. Closed Sundays and Mondays.) www.rosamundfelsen.com

Images: Untitled (pink and black), 2009. Courtesy of Rosamund Felsen Gallery, photo: Grant Mudford.

Comments

[boris8]

Style Patrol:
--"Tim Ebner's new works take the notion of shaped paintings far beyond these parameters, making them seem silly and not nearly as ambitious as his terrifically eccentric paintings . . ." This sentence chases its tail. So are the new works also the eccentric paintings? I can't tell.
--"It's great fun and, like lots of the 56-year-old artist's 21 solo shows in Los Angeles over the last 28 years, an unexpected departure that attests to Ebner's inventiveness and his unwillingness to stick to a tried and true style." This is a run-on sentence, very lazily written. Needs to be split into 2 or 3 parts.
--"Each of Ebner's two dozen fish is unlike any other." Again another lazy sentence. How about "Of Ebner's 24 fish, no two are alike"
--"dolled up" An unfortunate phrase. But wait:
--"All are dolled up with carefully placed lumps of Sculpy, an easy-to-use modeling compound that causes many of Ebner's rainbow-colored fish to appear to have . . ." This is convoluted. How about "Ebner used gobs of the modeling compound Sculpy to endow his rainbow-colored fish with . . ."
--"Part of Ebner's originality has to do with his palette" So just say it: Ebner's palette is original.
--"Others are goofy and cartoon". Lazy writing. Cartoon's not an adjective. Cartoonish maybe.
I will stop here. When is the LA Times going to get some writers? Or maybe it's the editors who are the problem.

[Donald Frazell]

Unlike the Allison Schulnick article and show I commented on below, this was simply childish design. And like most bad painters, with no built layered relationships or structure, no depth, no inner harmonious glow, the colors are dried out and far better in reproduction than real life. Sorta like most Warhol type pop but attempting ignorant expressionist strokes. Hardly Frank Stella aluminum painted french curves, which it looked like a bad pastiche of.

Looks like stuff for a baby crib mobile, not for adults. Wasted space in the gallery, as most contempt ones are these days. Could have put far more works in it and at least shown some variety and more artists. The best work at Bergamot was the Latin Masters Gallery by far. A great small Tamayo, and one excellent Roche among others, who just had a show at MoLAA a few months ago, And prints by Toledo who also has some there now.

The last "observation" by Pagel is pretty lame. Irrelevant, and simply childish. And the color is terrible, go look at the 7' sq Roche, or more importantly, the rich glowing subtlety of the Tamayo. Now THATS color.

art colegia delenda est

[William Wray]

Boris,

Perhaps in lockstep with contemporary art, technical skill is a hindrance to truth in expression?

[William Wray]

As a child I made chickens like these fish in out of corn and sunflower seeds at my Grandma's house. Should have kept them.

Celebrate the purity of the artist’s limitations.

[boris8]

Wm. Wray: Interesting point. I too sensed the joy in the review, and the author's effort to communicate his feeling about the show. But for me, the style problems muddied those clear waters of inspiration. Style improvements will help him communicate all of his ebullience. With a little work, he could be really good I think. My model here is maybe the drawing of Matisse: not "technically skillfull", but singing, expressive, and absolutely economical. Our reviewer here seemed flabby & lazy to me.

[William Wray]

Boris, I left out a word... ;-) all in good fun.

Perhaps in lockstep with contemporary art, technical writing skill is a hindrance to truth in expression?