Moshé Elimelech

January 7 - February 11, 2012 at L2kontemporary, Chinatown

by Bill Lasarow

Much contemporary art strives for high seriousness, compressing art historical source references and philosophical musings into coy objects meant more to be disentangled than simply enjoyed for their appearance. Formerly a graphic designer, Moshe Elimelech is inexorably drawn to want to tickle the eye with visual clues that blow the door of viewer engagement wide open rather than merely ajar.

 

Moshe Elimelech, "Untitled No. 7," watercolor on Fabrian paper, 22 x 30".

Elimelech’s past work has addressed interactivity, but in the manner of a parlor game (his “Cubic Constructions”). Watercolor-based urban landscapes were built up of numerous narrow horizontal striations of paint that display a deft touch and ingratiating charm. The more familiar the landmarks the easier it became to pigeonhole Elimelech as an illustrator deploying design knowhow rather than an artist addressing aesthetic issues via formal means. Seeking to establish a committed artistic identity, he has more recently opted to push away the subject matter in favor of a straight abstract application of the horizontal strips that references but does not depict nature. The results of this new series are disciplined but playful.

The grid has long served as one of abstraction’s classic armatures. Elimelech begins with a stack of lines stretched like harp strings across the width of a page. Paint application defines square or rectangular expanses that never extend to the paper’s edge, thus holding the most visible image area taut within the simple structure of parallel lines. Each narrow horizontal bar is painted as though it were an individual work, but always broken up by multiple interruptions of color and line. As the eye moves vertically there are instances of dramatic contrast, but for the most part and taken as a whole, the numerous bands are loosely coordinated to convey a unified effect. However lyrical the color and modular rhythms may be, the lines hold the image fast, reigning in the prevailing sense of kinetic activity.

Make no mistake, the sensitivity to color and visual rhythm is very sharp. Your eye can move smoothly from left to right, soaking up shifts in hue and opacity that offer numerous moments of pure visual pleasure and a rich set of associations. In some of these mostly “Untitled” works Elimelech allows neutral blacks and grays to dominate (“#18,” #20,” “#21), imparting an feeling of edginess, and in some works introducing light in a way that is well calibrated to feel both natural (“L.A. Sky #3) and metaphorical (“Untitled #15”). Looked at one way each image presents itself as highly intuitive and full of shifting incidental moments. But a given page seen as a whole has the regularity of a march.

Elimelech’s history is that he clearly likes to set specific parameters that serve as givens as he embarks on a series of work. One can feel the need for clarity and rationalism deeply embedded in the finished images. He moves, aesthetically speaking, from the outside in, and one must follow him inside the images to gain much sense of the energy of process. And it is there in the varying washes, the witty color schemes and in the diagonal inter-weavings that act as the warp to the images’ dominant weft.

Without these improvisational notes, these watercolors would die because Elimelech is not a minimalist nor is he a constructivist by nature: reductivism and purity will never be his métier. But the pleasures of this work go only so far as the artist can work the variables within a closed system, and that will eventually entrap him. He needs to make a more decisive shift from the principles of graphic design that have long come naturally to a set of aesthetic reference points that free him to privilege contradiction and surprise.

Moshe Elimelech, "Untitled No. 18," watercolor of Fabriano paper, 30 x 22". 

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Moshé Elimelech: Arrangements


Opening Reception: February 5th, 3-5pm

LA ArtCore Gallery, February 1-29, 2012

120 S. Judge John Aiso St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
. / T. 213.617.0303

The dynamic, interactive and finely executed cubic constructions of artist Moshé Elimelech will be showing at LA ArtCore February 1-February 29, 2012. There will be an opening reception for the artist on Sunday, February 5 from 6-9pm.

Each of the painted-structures on exhibit display an array of visual combinations; each painting comprised of a grid of cubes with all six sides of each cube painted with different application. The works are positioned in a sectioned, recessed frame with only one facet of each cube visible at any one time, awaiting the kinetic action and manipulation of a third-party.

Elimelech employs a designers eye to grids of beautifully hand-painted three-dimensional cubes or, Arrangements. The basic structural clarity of these pieces make way for an exploration of thought, chance and vast optic alternatives. As critic Peter Frank describes in the forthcoming monograph titled Moshé Elimelech: Reflections and Arrangements, “Elimelech also draws on the ready, rather than spectacular, involvement of the audience in the process of discovery and play into which Op and Kinetic Art characteristically brings us.”

The sixty-page book will include photographed works of Elimelech’s watercolors, arrangements, and installations with an introduction by Peter Frank on geometricism, choreography and the play of logic in Elimelech’s work. LA ArtCore will be selling the book during Elimelech's exhibition.

Frank adds, “Astute viewers will observe that, for all the brittle modernity that apparently attends to Elimelech’s work, he is in fact something of a traditionalist. The “modernity” he practices is rooted not in latter-day stylistic indulgences, but in the integral concepts of design we associate with a modernity older than we are.”

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QUICK INFO:


LA ArtCore Gallery,
 120 S. Judge John Aiso St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
. / T. 213.617.0303

Show titled: ”Arrangements”
February 1-29, 2012 
Opening Reception: February 5th, 3-5pm

Book Titled: “Moshé Elimelech: Reflections and Arrangements.”
Forward by Peter Frank
Release Date: TBA

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About the Artist:

Expressing his fascination of the nature of duality, artist Moshé Elimelech has created a unique series of three-dimensional abstract cubic constructions that invite the viewer to reinterpret each piece. Putting into play his notion of opposing forces has yielded works that are fixed yet mutable, precise but free-flowing, analytical yet imaginative, singular in essence and at the same time open to reinterpretation.

Moshé Elimelech grew up in Israel where he was exposed to art at an early age.  An acclaimed graphic designer, Elimelech in recent years has turned out work best described as a sophisticated synthesis of modernist features and architectural elements. Elimelech also works in watercolor and installations and currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, noted fashion designer Shelli Segal.

Moshé Elimelech: Geometric Geographics

Opening Reception: Saturday January 7th, 6-9pm

L2Kontemporary Gallery- Jan 7-Feb 11, 2012
990 N. Hill St #205, Los Angeles, CA 9001. /  T. 2
323-225-1282

Los Angeles, Calif.— Artist Moshé Elimelech and L2kontemporary are pleased to present new work premiering January 7, 2012. A series of finely executed watercolors will debut at L2Kontemporary Art Gallery in Chinatown with an opening on Saturday, January 7 from 6-9pm. The exhibition runs from January 7-February 11.

As in any traditional pictorial work rendered with pigment on an absorptive surface, the watercolors are all unique, handmade, and immutable. For every purely geometric composition rendered in watercolor, there is one in which stylized elements of landscape and/or cityscape appear, describing a charmed world of nuanced atmosphere with simplified objects, and topographies.

Elimelech transcends the professional design world into that of a fine artist. He applies his innate talent to creating powerful visual elements of the 21 century resulting in simple forms of traditional material. Although seemingly simple colored cells at first glance these works mask a hidden dialogue of rhythm, vibration and logic. "There is a musicality - both in the rhythmic structuring and pacing of the horizontal and vertical elements..." writes Art Critic, Ezrha Jean-Black.

Accompanying this gallery show is the release of a sixty-page monograph entitled “Moshé Elimelech: Reflections and Arrangements,” of photographed works with an essay by Peter Frank, and an introduction by Louis Stern of Louis Stern Fine Arts. The book includes images from his watercolors, arrangements, and installations.

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QUICK INFO:

Moshé Elimelech
www.MosheArt.com

L2kontemporary Art Gallery
990 N. Hill St #205, Los Angeles, CA 9001. /  T. 2
323-225-1282

Show Titled: Geometric Geographics
January 7-February 11
Opening Reception: January 7, 6-9pm

Book Release Titled: “Moshé Elimelech: Reflections and Arrangements.”
Essay by Peter Frank
Release Date: TBA

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About the Artist:

Expressing his fascination of the nature of duality, artist Moshé Elimelech has created a unique series of three-dimensional abstract cubic constructions that invite the viewer to reinterpret each piece. Putting into play his notion of opposing forces has yielded works that are fixed yet mutable, precise but free-flowing, analytical yet imaginative, singular in essence and at the same time open to reinterpretation.

Moshé Elimelech grew up in Israel where he was exposed to art at an early age.  An acclaimed graphic designer, Elimelech in recent years has turned out work best described as a sophisticated synthesis of modernist features and architectural elements. Elimelech also works in watercolor and installations and currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, noted fashion designer Shelli Segal.