Matthias Reinmuth: Chromatic Rhapsody

Edward Cella Gallery is thrilled to present the paintings of German artist Matthias Reinmuth in an exhibition entitled, Chromatic Rhapsody. Seeking to create a direct emotional connection to color, Reinmuth created new medium format paintings that arc in color and hue from one to the next and are installed sequentially on the gallery’s walls. Unfolding dynamically for the viewer, each of the works in the suite evolve harmonies of colors that softly shift like night sky moves into morning and later full daylight.

Structured as a panorama in parts, Chromatic Rhapsody, is the most comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work in the United States to date and is a direct response to the artist’s interest in Western traditions of landscape painting and in the light of the Western landscape itself. Building on the experience of installing his first museum survey in 2021 at the Museum Gegenstandsfreier Kunst (Museum of Non-Objective Art) in Otterndorf, Germany; the works in the exhibition are arranged to create an environment like installation. Taking note of the panoramas invented by Monet, Reinmuth seeks to create a series of paintings that share resonances and interweave, vibrate and hum with each other. In his words, “My pictures are predominately painted in daylight, but their entire narrative only unfolds with the changes in light incidences from one hour to the next, from morning to evening.”

For the Berlin based painter, color has the possibility of not only emotional but also narrative content. His paintings are kinetic (or cinematic) as they capture the swiping back and forth of the hundreds of images that blur across our smartphones and screens and create the permanent background noise of our digital media society. Building on the methodology of the Avant Guard which endeavors to mix, remix, and reinterpret itself; Reinmuth has begun to consider his paintings in a serialize practice allowing the glazes, colors and pigments shift over the course of the sequence.

Representing the artist’s second exhibition Edward Cella Gallery, Reinmuth’s return to Los Angeles also marks a shift in his practice. Leaving behind a studio process whereby the artist would repurpose canvas from his studio floor filled with spills, accidental gestures, and marks that he perceived as form of background noise; he began the works in this exhibition with stretched white canvases. Moving beyond elements of chance, Reinmuth began each composition with a line, diagonals curves or square form as an essential structure and then began covering them with subsequently layers of translucent colors.

In the artist’s words, “I wanted to have a stronger concentration point – on a sound – a noise that comes from the background to the surface. I tried to find a chromatic line of color, shading, and floating from white to dark, from cold to warm, and together they are a little Chromatic Rhapsody.”

Matthias Reinmuth: Chromatic Rhapsody will debut as part of the highly anticipated return of Inglewood Open Studios (IOS)which showcases self-guided tours of the city’s artist studios, art galleries, arts organizations and many other creative spaces on Saturday, November 12 and Sunday, November 13 from 12 to 5 PM (both days). After a three-year hiatus, the community wide festival proudly acquired nonprofit status, enabling it to dream more and do more for the community it serves. The IOS art walk is free to the public and includes free bus transportation between tour locations, generously sponsored by the City of Inglewood. For more information about the event, please visit inglewoodopenstudios.org.

The exhibition, Matthias Reinmuth: Chromatic Rhapsody is the third 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, Germany through a collaboration with the Los Angeles based 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.

Matthias Reinmuth: Chromatic Rhapsody

Edward Cella Gallery @ Himalaya Club

1109 N. La Brea Ave.
Inglewood, CA 90302

Open House Reception: November 12 & 13, 2022 | Noon to 5 PM

Held in conjunction with Inglewood Open Studios

On View Daily: Monday, November 14 through Saturday, November 19, 2022

11 am to 4 pm and by appointment through November 26

Street parking