Bettina Weiß: Cosme

Edward Cella Gallery proudly presents new paintings of German artist Bettina Weiß in her debut exhibition with the gallery, entitled: Cosme. Weiß considers her abstractions depictions of nature through geometric forms as they occur in micro and macrocosm. Lush in color, texture, and visual subtleties, her hard-edge paintings offer an exciting interplay of forms and colors created on wood panel surfaces. Alternatively lyrical and muscular the works on view offer the most cohesive understanding of the Berlin based artist’s current practice in the United States to date. 

Boldly geometric, Weiß’s paintings seek to amplify the language of abstraction. Utilizing both rectangular and circular panels and canvases, her affinity for prismatic shapes, circles and segments fuse with the high-keyed harmonic colors creating emblematic image patterns and fields. Suggesting Mandalas or other sacred geometric forms, the paintings resonate with rhythms and syncopations. Most evident in her ongoing series of small format paintings on panel entitled, Portraits of a Secret Landscape, Weiß generates visual possibilities for how abstraction might attempt to grasp the energy and complexity of the natural world – its magnitude and mysteries beyond language, but not recognition – in forms that are fluid, intuitive, or even magical.

Working unconventionally, Weiß combines both- oil paint and acrylics- in distinct stratums atop wood panels. Unlocked by the investigatory gaze of the viewer, her colorful transparent paints sit next to opaque ones, metallic pigments beside neon hues, and flat layers adjacent to thick areas reworked with pallet knives and tools to create haptic, cross-hatched or other textures. Discovering innumerable nuances of a single color, even on the tiniest surfaces, the artist creates paintings with a captivating visual experience.

The exhibition, Bettina Weiß: Cosme is the first in a series of three solo exhibitions entitled Berliner Fokus. The series is a new element in the Edward Cella Gallery program and introduces notable emerging artists living and working in Berlin through a collaboration with the Los Angeles based artist in residency project Himalaya Club. Intended as an annual series of exhibitions that will take place in the Fall, Berliner Fokus seeks to address over time the narratives that bind, differentiate, and distinguish the art communities of Los Angeles and Berlin; and build on the longer established cultural exchanges of these two sister cities. Each of the  exhibitions will be accompanied by newly commission short documentary created by Berlin based filmmaker Frederic Detjens recording the artist and  current practice in their studio.  

Bettina Weiß: Cosme 

Edward Cella Gallery @ Himalaya Club

1109 N. La Brea Ave.
Inglewood, CA 90302

Open House Reception: Saturday, September 24, 2022 | Noon to 7 PM

On View Daily: Sunday, September 25 through Saturday, October 1, 2022

11 am to 4 pm and by appointment through October 7

Street Parking Available