LOS ANGELES — At a time when the world is in turmoil, with inflation, political divisions and military conflicts abroad, Jennifer Guidi’s artwork may at first appear utopian, Polyannesian and just plain adorable. not.
And Guidi is no slouch about drawing inspiration from the sun, moon, flowers, birds, and rainbows. She doesn’t apologize for her love of pink.
But while pleasing to the eye, her paintings and sculptures (shown here at the David Kordansky Gallery on Saturday) betray the depth and complexity that curators have increasingly come to appreciate. said Heidi Zuckerman, curator of the Orange County Museum, which is curating Guidi’s exhibition next fall. “Part of it is the complexity of her undercoat and what she hides beneath her surface. I think.”
The quality of Guidi’s work also hides an advantage. To have her paintings taken seriously as substantial rather than decorative. and to establish a professional identity independent of her ex-husband, the high-profile (and high-priced) artist Mark Grotchan.
“Women are often defined by who they’ve been with,” Giddy said in a recent interview at her studio. “I don’t want to be pigeonholed.”
Over the past few years, the 50-year-old Guidi has established himself as a success. In 2018, she was taken over by Grotjahn’s leading mega-gallery Gagosian, and since 2016 Kordansky has represented her, presenting her current exhibition “in the center of the sun‘ occupies most of the gallery.
she recently Solo exhibition at the Long Museum in China. And her next show at the Orange County Museum will be opened a new building Her first institutional exhibition will be held in the United States last month.
one of her paintingselements of all entities, sold at Christie’s last fall for $625,000. This is more than four times the low estimate of $150,000 (her work has sold privately for between $100,000 and about $500,000). , Stephen A. Cohen and Maurice Marciano.
“She straddles the space between the spiritual and the hallucinatory,” said gallery owner David Kordansky. “They are just meditations on the atmosphere and atmosphere around the West Coast where the sky meets the sea.
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“So many artists have the concept of technology and fast images,” he continued, but Guidi’s paintings are “a poetic way of slowing yourself down and immersing yourself in the actual pleasure of looking.” It’s like an opportunity.”
The acceleration of the artist’s career coincides with the development of Guidi’s spiritual practice and the transition from representational to abstract painting. Inspired by the backstitching of Moroccan rugs and the mandalas of Tibetan monks, whose patterns radiate from his single point in the center, Gidi began mixing sand and paint about ten years ago.
She also engages in color exploration (most recently moving to fluorescent pinks, blues and yellows) and researches chakra techniques that connect to the body’s energy centers.
“I think of color as a way to connect, to engage, to bring people to a sense of life,” said Guidi. More vibrations.”
Every morning she meditates and collects crystals, the influence that gives her paintings a seductive serenity that has caught the attention of collectors and curators. Several major institutions have acquired Guidi’s work, including the Hammer Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
“She’s an important part of the Los Angeles art scene,” said collector Susan Gersh, who bought Giddy’s “Pink Sky Mountain” with her husband David. 2017. The color changes depending on the time of day. “
The exhibition, which opens this week, marks Guidi’s first time presenting a large number of sculptures. Enlarged rocks and crystals with a sand mandala, cast in bronze and painted with Kerr’s paints.
Wearing paint-splattered clogs and sipping water from a glass bottle, Giddy appears quiet and cautious at first. It’s always been her nature. “I was very shy. It took me a while to get used to someone,” she said. “I think a lot of artists are introverts.”
Born in Redondo Beach, California in 1972, Giddy always wanted to be an artist. Country Her father, who managed her club, used to sing and dance on stage. Her mother, who worked in her retail business, loved dancing.
She took art classes in high school and in 1998 received a master’s degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. To earn money for her college and graduate school, Guidi painted sets in theaters and had imitation finishes at home.
Having studied traditional drawing and painting, Guidi started out as a figurative painter, but eventually realized that was not the case. “I focused on making things as real as possible,” she said. but I didn’t feel like I was translating it purely into my own.”
In his early thirties, Guidi had two solo exhibitions of figurative painting at the ACME Gallery in Los Angeles. But then her career stalled. ACME never committed and no other galleries were interested.
“It was very frustrating,” Guidi said. “I continued to paint on my own, but to be honest, I quit painting.”
To some extent, this gave us the freedom to explore abstractions. “I closed my studio door and didn’t let anyone in. No noise, no outside voices,” she said. “I finally found my voice. And I knew it. Then I started inviting people and they actually got the job. I felt a calm, meditative presence in response.”
At the age of 42, Guidi began exhibiting again, eventually attracting the attention of gallerists Natalie Kaag, Massimo de Carlo, Kordansky, Armine Lec and Gagosian.
Guidi was one of six female artists from Los Angeles. afghan carpet project In 2014, Hammer designed a rug that is handwoven in Afghanistan. “Her carpet came from a watercolor she made when we were there: a grid of women in full-length kimals in light blue,” says Ari Subotnick, the curator who organized that project. said. “She quietly absorbs the world around her and distills it into meditative, hypnotic, often pulsating imagery.”
On social media, Guidi has built a devoted fan base. One of the reasons is that she shares videos of her work in progress with her nearly 84,000 Instagram followers. Gagosian director Millicent Wilner describes this as “generous.”
“It’s openness is very modern,” Willner said.
There are always people who dismiss jobs with such broad appeal. In 2017, his dealer Stefan Simchowitz famously ranted on his Facebook that Guidi was the latest trendy trophy. “Can I have a Jen Guidi, can I have a Jen Guidi, can I have a Jen Guidi?” art news interviewa mocking collector.
But Guidi returned to her studio with her typical quiet determination. rice field. “It’s about work, enjoying the process, falling in love with coming here every day, and trying to turn everything else off.”
