Exhibition Archive Marsha Mateyka Gallery - Fall season opens with Sam Gilliam: Paintings September 17 - October 29, 2011 Reception for the artist: Saturday, September 17th, 4:00 to 6:00 PM Press Release Review                                                   Linger, 2011                                                   acrylic on canvas, 54 x 60 x 8.5 inches                                                   Tinkerbell's Bookcase, 2010/11                                                   acrylic on canvas, 72 x 46 x 10 inches                                                   Sea Color, 2011                                                   acrylic on birch, 22.5 x 53 x 5 inches                                                   Fog Light, 2008                                                   acrylic on birch, 22.5 x 53 x 2.5 inches                                                                Gordian, 2011                                                                acrylic on canvas, approx. 22 x 23 x 5 inches                                                   Tempo Series: #1, 2009/10                                                   acrylic on nylon, approx. 70 x 38 x 11 inches                                                   Tempo Series: #2, 2009/10                                                   acrylic on nylon, approx. 72 x 36 x 11.5 inches                                                   Tempo Series: #2 detail                                                   Tempo Series: #3, 2009/10                                                   acrylic on nylon, approx. 67 x 32 x 13 inches                                                   Tempo Series: #4, 2009/10                                                   acrylic on nylon, approx. 60 x 36 x 10 inches Press Release Sam Gilliam’s originality, freedom and seemingly inexhaustible combinations of color and form have made him arguably Washington’s best known living artist.  Throughout his long, very distinguished and prolific career, Sam Gilliam has returned periodically to the drape form.  This innovation earned him international recognition in the late 1960’s.  At the time, the artist was looking for a way to go beyond the traditional distinction between sculpture and painting. The fall season at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery will open with the exhibition, “Sam Gilliam: Recent Drape Paintings”.  This exhibition contains six mid-size drapes and will be on view through October 29.  It is the third such exhibition at the gallery focusing on this signature aspect of the artist’s work.  The gallery has represented Sam Gilliam since 1998. 2011 has been a dynamic year for Sam Gilliam.  Many of his drape paintings, both early and recent have been on view at museums in Washington, DC.  Earlier this year, the Corcoran’s Color Field exhibition, “Washington Color and Light”, included several of his early works and featured the large pivotal drape painting, “Light Depth”.  In the spring of this year, The Phillips Collection invited the artist to create a large drape installation,  "Flour Mill",  for the museum’s three story, elliptical staircase.  This was followed by the opening of   "Close to Trees",  a large scale, spectacular installation of drape paintings occupying the entire third floor gallery space at the American University Museum, Katzen Center.   The exhibition included a circle of 23 foot high, color soaked pendulums suspended from the ceiling, as well as several large wall cascades.  Also in 2011 (although not a drape), the artist completed a commission for a large, glass and ceramic, mosaic tile wall at WMATA’s Takoma Park Metro Station. Sam Gilliam’s works are in the permanent collections of major museums worldwide.  Important drape paintings include “Bow Form Construction” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, “Ruby Light” at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, “Relative” at the National Gallery of Art and “Sea Horses” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Review The Washington Post, Galleries Friday, October 14, 2011, p. C5 by Mark Jenkins Sam Gilliam Skeptics of abstract painting joke a non-figurative canvas can be hung any which way, without making an aesthetic difference. Sam Gilliam halfway agrees.    The veteran color-field painter knows exactly how he wants his work displayed, but that can change.    His exhibition at Marsha Mateyka Gallery includes four pieces, previously shown at the Katzen gallery, that have been hung differently and renamed.   "Opened Box A-D" is now "Tempo Series: #1-4". It's been almost 50 years since Gilliam rebelled against the flat, rectangular canvas, and he's still finding ways to tweak that traditional format.  The four 2009-10 "Tempo" paintings, which are acrylic on nylon, are joined here by three new works on canvas, whose colors are less bright and textures more subtle.  Where the pigment seems to flow on the nylon, retaining a sense of fluidity, it seeps into the canvas, melding color and form.   The earlier paintings are stitched together, so that only the drape can change in different installations; "Tinkerbell's Bookcase" (composed of four pieces) and the knotty "Gordonian" can be arranged and rearranged, theoretically, in infinite variety. Sam Gilliam's "Tinkerbell's Bookcase", on display at Marsha Mateyka Gallery, can be arranged and rearranged, theoretically in infinite ways. The gallery is also showing, in rotation, two plain old rectangular Gilliam works: "Sea Color" and "Fog Light".  Layering acrylic washes on birch panels, the artist has crafted a seemingly glazed surface that appears closer to ceramics than painting.   "Fog Light" glimmers like the artist's soft nylon "boxes" but also has the canvas works' beguiling sense of depth.  Painting on a flat surface hasn't limited Gilliam at all.