The Lapis Press is pleased to present recent editions by Ed Ruscha, Analia Saban and Matthew Brandt. Despite the worldwide shut down from COVID-19, Lapis was able to complete three editions that were initiated before the onslaught of the pandemic. These works represent a sense of hope and beauty during a very challenging time.
GAL CHEWS GUM by Ed Ruscha is the artist’s second bronze edition with Lapis. The new sculpture melds multiple aspects of Ruscha’s iconic vision: text, signage, and shadows into a singular form. The bronze conjures a weathered road sign or billboard displaying the words ‘GAL CHEWS SAME PIECE OF GUM SINCE 1970.’ However, rather than conveying its message with eye-catching graphics, the text is written in negative space with the letters cut out from the face of the sign in a stretched, horizontal font.
GAL CHEWS GUM speaks to several eras of Ruscha’s practice in creating something uniquely and simultaneously nostalgic, droll and modern. The colloquialism of the phrase, ‘GAL CHEWS SAME PIECE OF GUM SINCE 1970’ evokes images of small-town roadside attractions or local news headlines; yet by immortalizing the phrase in bronze, the artist invites the viewer to consider the monumentality of the mundane. Ruscha once said, “I’m dead serious about being nonsensical.” Although this statement might initially read like an off-handed quip, it is highly representative of his practice and this new edition. His ability to stir the viewer’s imagination with a suggestive or illusive choice of words allows for both a conceptual and visual experience that leaves room for interpretation and delight.
Transcending Pigment from Paint to Canvas, from Canvas to Paint by Analia Saban is an edition of 40 unique, mixed-media monoprints in which Saban continues to test the limits of printmaking. Similar to Saban's previous collaboration with Lapis, this new edition uses layered, acrylic paint as a substitute for paper, adding a further step to the process by printing on paint as well as Belgian linen.
In this series, pigment is layered on top of a white layer of acrylic paint, transforming what it means to add color to paint. Transcending Pigmentincludes four color compositions in color schemes inspired by the color targets that were developed in the 1970's as digital color printing became more accessible. In Transcending Pigment, Saban synthesizes the history of painting with the recent technological advancements in digital printing.
Boxes by Matthew Brandt is a series of 12 images, each an edition of 5, inspired by the Carnegie Observatories Astronomical Plate Archives, consisting of over 200,000 photographic glass plate negatives created from 1892 through the early 1990s using telescopes at Mount Wilson, Palomar, Las Campanas and Kenwood Observatories.
Astronomers used to carry corrugated boxes of exposed glass plate negatives from their mountaintop telescopes. Brandt pierced the bottom of some of those boxes, replicating the random order of the universe framed within like a primitive telescope. The artist utilized multiple exposures to capture the various angles of light travelling through the pinholes, evoking a sense of wonder that we get from stargazing.
For a complete list of available works in any of these editions, please contact Anthony Nicholas at aen@lapispress.com
