About the Gallery Artists Represented Exhibition Archives Gallery Home Marsha Mateyka Gallery Exhibition Archive A Selection of Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings _______________________________________________ L. C. Armstrong Gene Davis Sam Gilliam Jae Ko Stephen Talasnik ____________________________ January 8 - February 8, 2014 Press Release Review L. C. Armstrong Reflex II, 1992 inks, acrylic, enamel, resin on aluminum 62 x 46 inches Gene Davis Ice Box (P506), 1969 acrylic on canvas 68.5 x 69 inches Saturn (P134), 1978 acrylic on canvas 41 x 28.5 inches Sam Gilliam Maya, 1971 acrylic on canvas 92 x 50 x 9 inches                                                   Maya, side view Station, 1977 acrylic collage on canvas on beveled stretcher, 30 x 30 inches Station, detail Jae Ko untitled (JKd1), 2011 glue and calligraphy ink on paper 12 x 18 inches / framed 18 x 23.25 inches untitled (JK384), 2010 rolled paper and red calligraphy ink, 17 x 11.5 x 5.5 inches untitled (JK279), 2005 rolled paper and Sumi ink, 12.5 x 14.25 x 5 inches Stephen Talasnik Suspended Tower, 2013 graphite and ink 20 x 15 inches Twisted Tower, 2013 graphite and ink 20 x 15 inches Leaning Towers, 2013 graphite and ink 20 x 15 inches Floating Fortress, 2013 graphite and ink 20 x 15 inches Press Release In this first exhibition of 2014, the Marsha Mateyka Gallery presents works by five artists who have been represented by the gallery.  Many of the works in this exhibition are early works and represent turning points in the artists’ careers. New York artist, L.C. Armstrong is best known today for paintings with luminous resin surfaces that encapsulate exotic, surreal landscapes.  Her work was first seen in Washington, DC, in 1991 in the 42nd Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Painting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.  In the current exhibition, “Reflex II”, 1992, is one of her early paintings using the resin technique to fix an image created with unusual materials; in this instance, the antiseptic mercurochrome.  Over the years, L.C. Armstrong’s works have been shown in four solo exhibitions at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery. Gene Davis was grouped with Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, as one of the leading artists in what became known as the Washington Color School.  Gene Davis was the first artist to develop the overall vertical stripe with a purely formal use of color.  The painting “Icebox”, 1969, in this exhibition, is one of the artist’s most minimal works.  A later work, “Saturn”, 1978, also in the exhibition, represents Gene Davis’s continuing fascination with the rhythmic intervals and color interactions possible with the stripe motif.  The gallery has represented the Estate of Gene Davis since 1997. Sam Gilliam, Washington’s best known contemporary painter, gained international recognition in the early 1970’s for his drape paintings.  In this exhibition, “Maya”, 1971, represents one these color soaked works.  Begun as a painting and then pinned to the wall, falling in folds, the work is a hybrid of painting and sculpture.  Also in this exhibition, another painting from the ‘70’s, “Station”, 1977, represents another signature technique identified with the artist.  It is a heavily raked painting over a color soaked surface, which is cut and reconstructed from several pieces into a collage and then stretched onto a beveled canvas.  Sam Gilliam’s works have been the subject of nine solo exhibitions at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery. Sculptor Jae Ko, a Korean American artist, who lives and works in the Washington, DC area, is internationally known for her seemingly inexhaustible inventions with the coiled form.  In this exhibition, untitled (JK384), 2010 and untitled (JK279), 2005 represent two variations of her use of adding machine paper to create tightly wound forms which are soaked in tubs of water.  While soaking, the forms are transformed by an ink added to the water--Sumi ink for velvet black, traditional calligraphy ink for a vivid red.  Jae Ko exhibits both nationally and internationally.  Recently, a solo exhibition at The Phillips Collection, “Force of Nature”, 2011/10, represented an extraordinary installation by the artist of coiled brown paper forms.  The artist’s eighth exhibition at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery will open April 5 with new work. Stephen Talasnik is a master draftsman whose drawings are in museum collections worldwide.  He is represented in the current exhibition by four intimate scale, graphite drawings.  In recent years, this New York artist has explored 3 dimensional visualizations of his ideas.  Whether illusionistic visions of surreal structures or actual constructions, the artist’s drawings and sculpture begin with simple components and linear structures and evolve into complex forms. Stephen Talasnik’s drawings and sculpture have been presented in four solo exhibitions at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery. Review Galleries The Washington Post, sec.E, p 24 Sunday, February 2, 2014 by Mark Jenkins “L.C. Armstrong, Gene Davis, Sam Gilliam, Jae Ko, Stephen Talasnik” The current five-person exhibition at Marsha Mateyka Gallery, “Selected Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture,” features three artists who are rarely missing from the venue’s group shows.  There’s a draped painting by Gilliam, stained with watery acrylic hues.  There are canvases striped by Davis, including one that’s unusual for its limited color scheme and systematic arrangement of lines.  There are tightly coiled pieces by Ko, made from rolls of paper and fixed in sinuous stasis by a mixture of glue and either red or black ink. Several of these are striking, but more noteworthy are works by Armstrong and Talasnik, just because neither artist has shown at the gallery recently.  Armstrong contributes a large ink-and-paint abstraction in black and red, covered in resin.  Its rich, seemingly tactile surface suggests a piece of worn velvet. Talasnik, a sculptor as well as a draftsman, combines various sorts of frameworks in four pencil-and-ink drawings from his “Glashaus” series.  The precisely loping lines recall industrial structures, roller coasters and Gaudi’s Gothic-modernist edifices, but also botanical illustrations.  Talasnik has done installations in public gardens and other outdoor sites, and that seems a natural extension of these pictures’s integration of organic and architectural forms. Back to Top