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Cheryl Walker
Immersion7+Fig Art Space
735 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles
213-955-7150 7fig.com/art-space.html
Immersion
Cheryl Walker, Listen, acrylic and pencil on paper, 80" x 144", 2007. Photo by Gene Ogami.
Cheryl Walker is only the third artist venturing into the new gallery underground at the Downtown Los Angeles 7+Fig Shopping Center. Her mission is to stir up emotion. She is an artist who explores, ruminates about, and, above all, plays with feelings.
Unlike most local museums where touching art is forbidden, Walker's Windows on the World II is interactive. Gallerygoers are invited to pick up new plastic shapes from an ample supply on a table and add them to hundreds of appealing shapes already on the window. The shapes resemble amoebic or floral forms reminiscent of Matisse's cutouts. Placing these nuggets of neon vinyl on rectangles of the same bright hues adds to the boisterous garden of this semitransparent mural. Through it, the outside shopping center peeks in bewitched in cheerful color. Walker declares it a work in perpetual development. The art is in the playing, not the outcome.
Beyond the vinyl are works on paper, some large, some small, some in color, some in pencil. These also speak of the artist's open-minded sense and playfulness. Through the different media, Walker communicates a willingness to let a work develop on its own, to let marks and shapes develop and align themselves freely and without rules, so the finished work is an organically-derived surprise rather than a planned composition.
"I was listening to John Cage's music when I created this one," explains Walker as she points to an untitled, hanging work. The piece evokes a malfunctioning Etch-a-Sketch.
The massive color painting Listen features words: Listen, Love, Look, and listening peek out through her alternative vocabulary of hues, values, and intensities. Large strokes of color mingle in this as well as her other color pieces with uninhibited exuberance. Shades of blue suggest water. Swirling gestures of paint are hurricanes or tornadoes. Her energetic paintings are palpable records of her body's movement in every stroke.
Unlike most local museums where touching art is forbidden, Walker's Windows on the World II is interactive. Gallerygoers are invited to pick up new plastic shapes from an ample supply on a table and add them to hundreds of appealing shapes already on the window. The shapes resemble amoebic or floral forms reminiscent of Matisse's cutouts. Placing these nuggets of neon vinyl on rectangles of the same bright hues adds to the boisterous garden of this semitransparent mural. Through it, the outside shopping center peeks in bewitched in cheerful color. Walker declares it a work in perpetual development. The art is in the playing, not the outcome.
Beyond the vinyl are works on paper, some large, some small, some in color, some in pencil. These also speak of the artist's open-minded sense and playfulness. Through the different media, Walker communicates a willingness to let a work develop on its own, to let marks and shapes develop and align themselves freely and without rules, so the finished work is an organically-derived surprise rather than a planned composition.
"I was listening to John Cage's music when I created this one," explains Walker as she points to an untitled, hanging work. The piece evokes a malfunctioning Etch-a-Sketch.
The massive color painting Listen features words: Listen, Love, Look, and listening peek out through her alternative vocabulary of hues, values, and intensities. Large strokes of color mingle in this as well as her other color pieces with uninhibited exuberance. Shades of blue suggest water. Swirling gestures of paint are hurricanes or tornadoes. Her energetic paintings are palpable records of her body's movement in every stroke.