David Hicks / Chris Trueman: New Works

Edward Cella Art & Architecture is pleased to announce New Works, a two-person exhibition featuring hand-formed and assembled terra cotta and steel sculptures by David Hicks, and gestural, abstract paintings by Chris Trueman. Both artists received MFA's from schools renowned for programs in their respective media; Hicks, an MFA graduate of the esteemed New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and Trueman, an MFA graduate of Claremont Graduate University, California, its process-based counterpart in painting. Hicks and Trueman, though working within divergent media and material-based practices, share a similar preoccupation with the expressive possibilities of surface.

David Hicks has long been fascinated by the cyclical momentums he has observed in nature and agriculture, and has sought to capture these transitions through dimensional, biomorphic ceramics. Working primarily in terra cotta, the artist creates complex, clustered, multi-part compositions that echo the growth and decay of organic matter. Hicks sees these transitions in nature as allegorical extensions of similar passings, metamorphoses, and shifts in human experience. Particularly interested in the final glazing of his forms, Hicks creates subtle permutations of color and texture, and approaches the surfaces of these multi-part pieces with an intuitive and near painterly sensibility. The shifting skins cladding his sculptures bring them to life as nuanced aggregates.

Chris Trueman's paintings are dynamic explorations of surface. Appropriating formal vocabularies from several painting traditions, including abstract expressionism and geometric op-art, his works feel referential, yet new. Painting in acrylic and spray paint on Yupo paper mounted to board, his works have the translucency of film and the material solidity of paint. Trueman stages visual and physical tensions in his work that contribute to its material ambiguity and magnetism. While Hicks' sculptural works feel painterly, Trueman's paintings feel sculptural. With a dynamic use of negative space and an authoritative, yet organic, handling of gesture, Trueman's touch creates a multiplicity of marks and planes that interact, pushing and pulling the surface into dimensional life.

ABOUT DAVID HICKS

Dave Hicks creates ceramic artworks inspired by nature. Individual organic forms are assembled together by thin wire, aggregating dozens of disparate parts into singular large sculptures. Hicks is a graduate from the well-regarded ceramics program at California State University, Long Beach and received his MFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, New York. Recent exhibitions include Nucleus, Cross Mackenzie Gallery, Washington DC; Material Collaborations, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL; Goodwin Fine Art, Denver, CO; and MUCK, Curated by Peter Held, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ. His work is included in numerous private and public collections including the St. Petersburg Museum of Art, the US Embassy Art Collection, Washington, DC, and the American Museum of Ceramic Art.

ABOUT CHRIS TRUEMAN

Chris Trueman graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2003, earning dual BFA degrees in Painting and Digital Media. He relocated to southern California to attend Claremont Graduate University, earning an MFA in 2010. Trueman currently teaches painting at Fullerton College and Santa Ana College and has previously taught at Chapman University. He has guest lectured at Chapman University, Pomona College and Santa Ana College and was a Northrup Grumman Visiting Artist Scholar at the Museum of Art and History Lancaster.

Trueman has had solo exhibitions at Edward Cella Art & Architecture, Los Angeles, CA; Andrewshire Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; White Box Contemporary, San Diego, CA; Adah Rose Gallery, Kensington, MD; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; and Autonomie Projects, Los Angeles, CA. Group exhibitions include Read Contemporary, Dallas, TX; Santa Ana College, Santa Ana, CA; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; Irvine Fine Arts Center, Irvine, CA; DEN Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA; Central Utah Art Center, Ephraim, UT; and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA.